The veterans say the first six weeks are a complete and utter blur. However, I have managed to jot down a few quirky revelations amidst the foggy haze that hovers over the carcass of a new mom.
First and foremost, our baby is adorable. Brad and I are completely smitten. The most perfect button nose, darling squeaks and squawks, and a soft spot speckled with fuzz divinely designed for smooches. We could stare at her expressions for hours. But, life has changed dramatically. We now live in a world where Baby writes The Rules.
Rule #1: One-handed finger foods are the only realistic options. Get creative and ditch the silverware. Cookies for lunch = perfectly acceptable. Peeling a banana with one’s teeth – practically driver’s ed for motherhood. And don’t feel bad if you drop a few crumbs on your mini bundle. You can lap them up the next time you smother her with kisses.
Rule #2: Shit happens...on your shirt. Typically when you about to leave the house for the first time in five days so you don’t have to scarf down pretzels for breakfast AND after you have meticulously planned to ensure your little stinker is breastfed, diapered and sleepy before passing her over to Daddy. Shockingly, this will not faze you. You! You who is convinced the world’s amoebas are out to infect you with the bubonic plague. You who scrubs up to her elbows with Purell after you ride the “el” in the city. You who uses a separate sponge (good and evil) for the dishes and countertops. Suddenly, it is “poop schmoop”. It’s not like you won’t have a coat on over it and besides, people will just assume it’s Dijon mustard.
Rule #3: Speaking of poop, the baby will always wait to take that giant dump three minutes after you have changed her, reswaddled her, and settled back into bed with the boppy on your lap and your boob hanging out, dripping breast milk onto her forehead. Clause A: If you risk waiting to change her until after she is done feeding, said poop will invariably seep out through the side of the diaper like ectoplasmic slime onto your pajama pants. This actually can feel pleasantly warm, especially if you are fighting to keep your eyes open. Until, of course, the waft of stink hits your nose.
Rule #4: When she is finally settled down after methodical rocking, back-patting, and singing The Muffin Man refrain fifteen times (which by the way is an incredibly dumb song), you will come to realize that everything is just out of your grasp. Your water glass will taunt you two feet away on the coffee table. The TV remote will cackle. You will suddenly discover that your lips are incredibly chapped and you have an insanely violent itch on your right hip.
Rule #5: At 5am, after finally getting your little fat-cheeked cherub to sleep after a two-hour marathon of her staring at you wide-eyed and expectant, you will spy the early morning sun streaming through the windows. A sense of doom will set in as you realize your opportunity for sleep is shrinking like a ninety year old man. This will be a low point. The point at which you will become so cranky and crabby that you will actually consider grabbing that slobbery silicone pacifier on the nightstand and sucking on it yourself.
Rule #6: As tempting as it may be, refrain from playing “nap roulette”. If you put off zzzzz’s to finish those thank you notes, she will invariably wake up approximately twelve minutes after you have finally tucked yourself in and started drifting. And on the rare occasions she doesn’t wake up, you will be expecting her to, anticipating those slight tell-tale grunts, so you won’t be able to snooze anyway.
Rule #7: The crevices in her neck will befuddle you. No matter how many layers of cute baby fat you attempt to lift up to wipe off the dried milk during bath time, the neck will remain elusive. Attempting to clean this body part might be on par with fracking in North Dakota. It is a two-parent job that is not for the rookie couple. It demands skill, choreography, and cunning trickery to get a washcloth under there. And trust me, she will be pissed the entire time.
Rule #8: Your baby may occasionally give you the finger, especially while nursing. Yes, your sweet innocent Tabula Rasa will flip you the bird now and again. Try not to take this too personally. Focus on those impossibly cute little phalanges. You will attempt to document this phenomenon, but the fact that your exposed boob will appear in every photo might be a tad inappropriate for posting on Facebook.
In the last six weeks, I have come to discover that life now is all about choices and two hour intervals. Do I want to eat breakfast before 11am or wash the grease out of my ponytail? I am also boggled by how few nursery rhymes I can actually recite by heart. Weren’t those ridiculous songs about rainbows and farm animals drilled into my hippocampus? I have been chanting Puff, The Magic Dragon (which I believe is actually about marijuana) and You are My Sunshine on banal repeat to the point that I want to blow my own brains out. Even worse, I have been making up lyrics. I know that “If that looking glass gets broke, Papa isn’t gonna buy you an artichoke”, but for some reason that seems to make excellent sense at 2am. In fact, “If that artichoke should rot, Papa’s gonna buy you.. a bag of snot”. Sadly, the night this slipped out of my mouth, I giggled like a six year old and consequently woke her up after a significant rocking-chair investment. I am so desperate for fresh options that my sister came over the other afternoon and was singing Old Mac Donald to her son. I was ready to nominate her for a Grammy. What a revelation! This opened up a whole new repertoire of pig snorts and duck quacks that could be incorporated into our playtime. Totally the highlight of my day.
And so, we are slowly adapting to parenthood and making up our own Bill Maher version of New Rules. This about knocks out my two hour interval for today. In fact, I think I hear her grunting. I’m coming, darling... “Puff, The Magic Dragon lived by the sea and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee...”
Dec 28, 2011
Sep 14, 2011
Big-Boned and Beautiful
My fetus thinks she’s fat. That’s right. Body image issues in utero. As the mom, I can take all the looks, comments, and flabbergasted exclamations when the mailman or the grocery clerk hear that I STILL have two more months. Your retorts ring in my ears at bedtime, “You’re Huge.” “YOU ARE about to POP!” “Gee, I’d hate to see you at 9 months” and my new favorite that seems to be paired with a hearty open-mouthed cackle, “You’re sure there aren’t two in there, darlin’?” Yes. Pretty sure. Now shut your trap, meth addict. Your teeth look like you have been gargling with coffee. I can take it all, but my baby. My sweet little 3 lb. baby. Thanks a lot. Now she has issues. She can hear, you know. That’s why Brad has been serenading Big Brown Eyes on the guitar at night and why I enthusiastically read aloud from that awful book, Goodnight Moon, in the nursery rocking chair with inflection in my voice.
She is taking it all in. Every suggestive comment about the importance of exercise and how I really only need to be ingesting a maximum of 300 extra daily calories. 300? You don’t say? And here I thought flabbing it out on my couch, eating sticks of Land-o-Lake’s like summer popsicles was what the doctor ordered. I will have you know that the OB says I am perfectly in range. No gestational diabetes, no swelling. My kid is just big-boned. Now leave me alone.
I find myself rubbing my belly in front of Dove Commercials while telling the Seed she is beautiful just the size she is. I still think years of therapy may be ahead of us. My sister is having the opposite problem. She has been suffering the skinny girl ridicule. Strangers on the street coming up to her, probing if she is eating enough. “You know you really shouldn’t diet when you are pregnant – your body needs at LEAST another 300 calories.” I told her to flick ‘em off and say she is doing just fine with her celery sticks and diet coke, but thanks for the unsolicited advice.”
So, here is the script. Pay attention and repeat after me. “Congratulations! You look absolutely wonderful. In fact, you are glowing.” And that’s about all that you need to say. Even if you have to lie. Just stick to the script and everyone will be fine. The only person that is actually exempt from this rule and allowed speak her mind is the maternal great-grandmother. She gets full reign. Or at least in my experience, it is impossible to put a muzzle on her. Baba has gone around introducing my sister and me throughout our mutual pregnancies this summer, beaming with pride. This is her standard opening: “Yes, Amy is having a boy in September and Emily, well, we think she is having a girl. You know how they say that girls steal their mother’s beauty.” Wink wink. Fantastic. But, hey, as I said, I can take it. As long as I have my stick of butter to pacify me.
She is taking it all in. Every suggestive comment about the importance of exercise and how I really only need to be ingesting a maximum of 300 extra daily calories. 300? You don’t say? And here I thought flabbing it out on my couch, eating sticks of Land-o-Lake’s like summer popsicles was what the doctor ordered. I will have you know that the OB says I am perfectly in range. No gestational diabetes, no swelling. My kid is just big-boned. Now leave me alone.
I find myself rubbing my belly in front of Dove Commercials while telling the Seed she is beautiful just the size she is. I still think years of therapy may be ahead of us. My sister is having the opposite problem. She has been suffering the skinny girl ridicule. Strangers on the street coming up to her, probing if she is eating enough. “You know you really shouldn’t diet when you are pregnant – your body needs at LEAST another 300 calories.” I told her to flick ‘em off and say she is doing just fine with her celery sticks and diet coke, but thanks for the unsolicited advice.”
So, here is the script. Pay attention and repeat after me. “Congratulations! You look absolutely wonderful. In fact, you are glowing.” And that’s about all that you need to say. Even if you have to lie. Just stick to the script and everyone will be fine. The only person that is actually exempt from this rule and allowed speak her mind is the maternal great-grandmother. She gets full reign. Or at least in my experience, it is impossible to put a muzzle on her. Baba has gone around introducing my sister and me throughout our mutual pregnancies this summer, beaming with pride. This is her standard opening: “Yes, Amy is having a boy in September and Emily, well, we think she is having a girl. You know how they say that girls steal their mother’s beauty.” Wink wink. Fantastic. But, hey, as I said, I can take it. As long as I have my stick of butter to pacify me.
Jul 7, 2011
The City
Tonight, thirteen strangers pranced through our apartment to discern if they could make it their home. I am glad Brad and I both left. I didn’t want to watch them mentally mapping out the next few years of their lives: curling up in our living room, frying onions over our stove, and sorting socks on our gray pile carpet. It is still ours.
This type of resistance floods my pores when change is perched cat-like on the horizon. I am a wistful soul. I find comfort in the familiar. But, our “Seed” is 22 weeks now and we have succumbed to the migratory pull of suburban parenting. It is fitting in a way – my parents brought me home from the hospital to a sunny yellow nursery on Bonnie Brae. Brad and I will be doing the same for the Seed. Three blocks down. It will likely be the house where she takes her first tentative steps, learns how to say Dadda and blows out a solitary birthday candle with frosting on her nose. But, right now it holds no memories for us.
I bought a card the other day that I tacked up on my bulletin board: “Sometimes ‘right back where you started from’ is right where you belong.” I think it may help me leave the life we have started here at 1211 W. Newport. It makes me think of that board game Amy and I used to play as kids. Life. The one where you plugged along in your mini-plastic station wagon at the mercy of the addictive rainbow spinning wheel, dodging financial ruin and social hiccups along the way. It was a twisty, curvy crapshoot if you hit prosperity or poverty – but everyone ended up a mere inch from the starting space anyway. Some just had more pegs in their cars.
I will miss this apartment. I will miss the buzz of the city – the parade of people clapping down Southport in their flip-flops, the over-priced corner coffee-houses, Ray’s Italian Ice shop that sells homemade soup in the winter, the open air patios, and even the local florist who charges $8 per hydrangea stem. I’ll miss the distant roar of the Wrigley crowd five blocks away and the playful score of the organ carried in on the breeze. I may even miss having to pause the TV every time the Brown Line thunders through our backyard at rush hour.
This was the apartment a cab dropped me off in front of one cold snowy mid-December night in 2008 after I had brushed my teeth and tongue at least five times. I stood outside and mused if I would be coming here a lot. And then Brad greeted me at the door with a preposterously thick, itchy wool sweater as part of my Christmas dare and I knew. Yes. I would be back many times.
These are the very walls that enveloped us as a new couple, the floors that creaked in protest when I “feminized” the interior. This is the living room nook that is transformed daily into the Hyatt St. Louis. The back door that attracts an obscene amount of spiders after dusk in the summer. The storage closet that graciously conceals the chaotic menagerie of two adult nostalgists. The whirlpool tub that lavishes the ultimate bubble bath. The hall threshold with the stubborn nail that has ripped multiple right footed cotton socks. The counter where one late wine-soaked night...we sorted the mail.
Our children will never know this place. It will be the street we drive them down one day on the way home from a customary Cubs’ loss and say, “Hey, see that stone building with the big tree out front? Your mom and I used to live there when we were first married. Yup, right up there. That front window is where I ‘d see your mom every morning sitting at her computer with her ponytail and pjs after I’d come home from working the night shift.” They’ll look up for a second – but won’t believe it. Mom and Dad – urbanites? Not a chance. Everyone in the city is so...hip.
Naturally, we are excited about what awaits us on Bonnie Brae. A subsequent chapter. A new home to claim for our expanding family of pink and blue pegs. A fresh coat of paint. There are good layers under there from the people before us who have moved on to their own next adventure. You can hear the echoes in the walls. Children’s squeals, backyard bbqs, and bedtime stories. I know this to be true. We are adding to an already solid foundation. I suppose that is what we leave to the new tenants on Newport – whoever you may be. We leave you some truly exceptional layers. Take care of them.
This type of resistance floods my pores when change is perched cat-like on the horizon. I am a wistful soul. I find comfort in the familiar. But, our “Seed” is 22 weeks now and we have succumbed to the migratory pull of suburban parenting. It is fitting in a way – my parents brought me home from the hospital to a sunny yellow nursery on Bonnie Brae. Brad and I will be doing the same for the Seed. Three blocks down. It will likely be the house where she takes her first tentative steps, learns how to say Dadda and blows out a solitary birthday candle with frosting on her nose. But, right now it holds no memories for us.
I bought a card the other day that I tacked up on my bulletin board: “Sometimes ‘right back where you started from’ is right where you belong.” I think it may help me leave the life we have started here at 1211 W. Newport. It makes me think of that board game Amy and I used to play as kids. Life. The one where you plugged along in your mini-plastic station wagon at the mercy of the addictive rainbow spinning wheel, dodging financial ruin and social hiccups along the way. It was a twisty, curvy crapshoot if you hit prosperity or poverty – but everyone ended up a mere inch from the starting space anyway. Some just had more pegs in their cars.
I will miss this apartment. I will miss the buzz of the city – the parade of people clapping down Southport in their flip-flops, the over-priced corner coffee-houses, Ray’s Italian Ice shop that sells homemade soup in the winter, the open air patios, and even the local florist who charges $8 per hydrangea stem. I’ll miss the distant roar of the Wrigley crowd five blocks away and the playful score of the organ carried in on the breeze. I may even miss having to pause the TV every time the Brown Line thunders through our backyard at rush hour.
This was the apartment a cab dropped me off in front of one cold snowy mid-December night in 2008 after I had brushed my teeth and tongue at least five times. I stood outside and mused if I would be coming here a lot. And then Brad greeted me at the door with a preposterously thick, itchy wool sweater as part of my Christmas dare and I knew. Yes. I would be back many times.
These are the very walls that enveloped us as a new couple, the floors that creaked in protest when I “feminized” the interior. This is the living room nook that is transformed daily into the Hyatt St. Louis. The back door that attracts an obscene amount of spiders after dusk in the summer. The storage closet that graciously conceals the chaotic menagerie of two adult nostalgists. The whirlpool tub that lavishes the ultimate bubble bath. The hall threshold with the stubborn nail that has ripped multiple right footed cotton socks. The counter where one late wine-soaked night...we sorted the mail.
Our children will never know this place. It will be the street we drive them down one day on the way home from a customary Cubs’ loss and say, “Hey, see that stone building with the big tree out front? Your mom and I used to live there when we were first married. Yup, right up there. That front window is where I ‘d see your mom every morning sitting at her computer with her ponytail and pjs after I’d come home from working the night shift.” They’ll look up for a second – but won’t believe it. Mom and Dad – urbanites? Not a chance. Everyone in the city is so...hip.
Naturally, we are excited about what awaits us on Bonnie Brae. A subsequent chapter. A new home to claim for our expanding family of pink and blue pegs. A fresh coat of paint. There are good layers under there from the people before us who have moved on to their own next adventure. You can hear the echoes in the walls. Children’s squeals, backyard bbqs, and bedtime stories. I know this to be true. We are adding to an already solid foundation. I suppose that is what we leave to the new tenants on Newport – whoever you may be. We leave you some truly exceptional layers. Take care of them.
Apr 30, 2011
Announcing.... The Seed!
It may appear to the untrained eye that I have been letting myself go. Sweatpants. Sofa. Wheel of Fortune. Munching on Golden Grahams, Matzo, and the occasional pretzel rod. I’ve stopped cooking. I’ve ceased blow-drying. “Shower” is actually scribbled on my daily to-do-list. AND I feel incredibly proud when I can cross it off. I seem to have somehow activated a sadistic resurgence of adolescent acne in my T-zone. The giant ones. Band-geek worthy. With a pulse. I’ve completely given up on the YMCA elliptical while flipping through Us Weekly, even when discretely encased by Newsweek. I sob during State Farm commercials. I cannot open my own fridge without sporting one of those SARS masks you see in Asian airports. Oh yea, and most importantly I have turned the exact greenish hue of the Grinch who stole X-mas.
There is a creature inside of me, sprouting webbed hands, tooth buds and eyelashes. And some other important stuff, like organs. Brad and I are both ecstatic. It is a miracle. A miracle the size of a lime that has me sprinting to hurl over the toilet whenever I see a hamburger, think of pizza, or smell anything other than cantaloupe and pineapple.
I have been trying to bond with the little “seed”. I tell her everything is okay. I gently rub my tummy. I take long leisurely naps. But, I have a sense she is mocking me from her little amniotic command zone. I am pretty certain we are dealing with a girl. There is too much drama going on in there to suspect a laid-back lad. I have even given her an identity. Secretly and very maturely, I have been calling her a name that Brad impulsively “vetoed”, but that has been my childhood fantasy ever since I dressed my first Barbie doll.
The doctors all nod enthusiastically when I tell them I am feeling like shit. “That’s fantastic,” they grin. “Lots of hormones surging around in there! You should see things taper off around Week Twelve.” Week Twelve. I have been awaiting this Week Twelve like the coming of the Messiah. I have been counting down, pacing, salivating like a school kid for summer. Well, week 12 came and went. And the only apparent “tapering” is in the form of that invasive little worm that continues to starve me every ninety minutes.
I was thinking, maybe this kid is just looking for some good old-fashioned public acknowledgement. After all, we have kept this pretty hush-hush. Maybe I am gestating a star who will be the next Scarlett O’Hara and she just needs a sprinkling of narcissistic attention. So – here you are…public acknowledgement, kiddo. Everyone (aka my 17 loyal followers) is virtually adoring you on my blog. Now, it would be just swell if you would consider giving dear old mom a break – after all, I hate to manipulate your sweet little developing brain, but pretty soon you will be at my mercy. That’s right. Mom will be wielding all the power. I can’t wait for you to come out so I can introduce you to these things we call boobs.
There is a creature inside of me, sprouting webbed hands, tooth buds and eyelashes. And some other important stuff, like organs. Brad and I are both ecstatic. It is a miracle. A miracle the size of a lime that has me sprinting to hurl over the toilet whenever I see a hamburger, think of pizza, or smell anything other than cantaloupe and pineapple.
I have been trying to bond with the little “seed”. I tell her everything is okay. I gently rub my tummy. I take long leisurely naps. But, I have a sense she is mocking me from her little amniotic command zone. I am pretty certain we are dealing with a girl. There is too much drama going on in there to suspect a laid-back lad. I have even given her an identity. Secretly and very maturely, I have been calling her a name that Brad impulsively “vetoed”, but that has been my childhood fantasy ever since I dressed my first Barbie doll.
The doctors all nod enthusiastically when I tell them I am feeling like shit. “That’s fantastic,” they grin. “Lots of hormones surging around in there! You should see things taper off around Week Twelve.” Week Twelve. I have been awaiting this Week Twelve like the coming of the Messiah. I have been counting down, pacing, salivating like a school kid for summer. Well, week 12 came and went. And the only apparent “tapering” is in the form of that invasive little worm that continues to starve me every ninety minutes.
I was thinking, maybe this kid is just looking for some good old-fashioned public acknowledgement. After all, we have kept this pretty hush-hush. Maybe I am gestating a star who will be the next Scarlett O’Hara and she just needs a sprinkling of narcissistic attention. So – here you are…public acknowledgement, kiddo. Everyone (aka my 17 loyal followers) is virtually adoring you on my blog. Now, it would be just swell if you would consider giving dear old mom a break – after all, I hate to manipulate your sweet little developing brain, but pretty soon you will be at my mercy. That’s right. Mom will be wielding all the power. I can’t wait for you to come out so I can introduce you to these things we call boobs.
Jan 20, 2011
Flour and Water
I picked up the bread. It was my routine. Every Tuesday around 4pm, I’d clap my laptop shut, grab my water bottle and surrender myself to the 100-degree Arizona sun. I’d swing by the post office, organic markets on Skyline Drive that curved around the Catalinas, and then the “piccolo” Italian café for their famous focaccia. One loaf, sometimes two, depending on if I had a spare propped up against the ice cream sandwiches in the freezer. It was – without question – the most ethereal hearth-baked carbohydrate I had ever devoured: Sweetly charred where the flames had tickled the crust and subtly glazed with rosemary, olive oil, and a shy sprinkling of sea salt. The inside remained so moist and chewy that when you pulled it apart the gluten resisted like elastic. Flour and water - in symbiotic harmony. I craved that bread with a palpable savagery normally attributed to hyenas in heat on the Nature Channel. It was obsession at first bite.
I heard of the place when I first moved to Tucson and polled every person I met about the city’s hidden gastronomic gems. “Quaint little place. Only a few tables, so go early. Pasta is all homemade, but the bread...Oh, the bread!” This was inevitably conveyed with a certain drunken delirium – a smacking of the lips, rolling back of the eyeballs, with arms raised in the air. “Absolutely orgasmic. You must go.”
And so we went. Friday night dinner at the petite café in a disconcertingly drab strip mail devoid of all ambiance. We had been warned, “Don’t let the location fool you.” That afternoon, I had read online how the store’s owners, Massimo and Margarita, a young couple from San Francisco, had migrated west in search of a place to conceptualize and conceive their Italian café. A lone ravioli in a town of rellenos.
The modest room was brightly lit and separated part-store and part-restaurant by a precariously high stack of canned San Marzano plum tomatoes. Every item was authentic – imported kalamatas, infused balsamics, dried pastas in every contorted shape – peeking out from their cellophane windows like eager orphans waiting to be claimed. Sautéed garlic and lemon zest smacked you in the nostrils when you first stepped in the door, but after a while the wafts matured into rich boar ragus and eggplant caponatas. The colors in the deli case were mesmerizing – bulky tubes of beet-red salamis, polka-dotted with peppercorns, grilled calamari tossed with purple capsicums, and almond-toned panna cottas expertly molded into moon domes. We regularly devoured several baskets of bread and I was never shy about asking for refills.
It became our go-to spot - the local treasure we took visitors after the obligatory first meal at one of many spicy Southwestern joints. Sometimes, if we weren’t completely engorged, we’d round out dinner at the artisan gelato shop across the street that decorated each flavor with edible embellishments. After a few months, stopping by for a to-go loaf of the focaccia was tacked onto my regular Tuesday schedule. Gradually, I got to know Margarita and recognize her thick walnut hair pinned back with turquoise-rimmed sunglasses. She was always perched at the bar, bent over her purveyor orders, calculator in hand as a lemon wedge frolicked around the bubbles in her San Pellegrino. We exchanged small pleasantries, usually about food - What elaborate new recipe I had attempted that week or how quiet the town was since the snowbirds headed north. She always laughed and shrugged when I begged her to relinquish the trade secrets of her dough, “It’s pretty much just flour and water. It’s the pecan wood and oven that do all the magic.”
I’d like to think she was flattered that I drove four miles every week to pick up a loaf of her $4 focaccia. I’d like to think she thought of me as a local – a neighbor – a friend. But, maybe she was just being kind, gauging my loneliness. My listlessness. Maybe she knew all along what I hadn’t yet discovered. That I was busying myself, running futile errands, whipping up gourmet meals on weekdays - all to provide purpose – to fill in the gaping holes of a marriage that was turning porous. Maybe she sensed I was keeping my life glued together with her bread.
* * *
Three years later, I am curled up on my love seat in Chicago to watch the NBC Evening News. I spot a familiar storefront in the background of the makeshift TV set. The blood drains from my face and I drop the remote from my fingertips. I know as soon as I read the caption scrolling beneath the broadcast, Gunman opens fire this morning at a political gathering in a L-shaped Tucson shopping center. Six confirmed dead. Fourteen wounded. The sidewalks are already littered with teddy bears, votive candles, and pollen-dusted lillies. A “Get Well, Gabby” banner blows gently, tied with string between two Agave stalks. Before transitioning to commercial, the camera zooms in on poster leaning up against a brick wall, “God Bless America.” - child’s scrawl in red and blue crayon. And there – just behind Brian Williams’ left shoulder is my Italian café.
How many times had I driven through that center, toggling over speed bumps, waving on pedestrians pushing grocery carts, before I took an automatic right onto Ina and accelerated for home? How many Tuesdays did I reverse out of my parking space, tearing into that bread before spitefully tossing the whole thing in the back so there’d be some left for dinner?
That night I sit up in bed and think a lot about timing and chance and mortality. I wonder how a place that once brought so much comfort to me, so much normalcy, could suddenly evoke such heartache. I weigh how much more complicated the world gets as you get older - how you begin to understand questions that start with ‘why’ don’t always have satisfying answers. How some holes are just too massive to be mended by something simple.
I think of Margarita and wonder if she is still making her focaccia or if routine is something that was sacrificed that morning in Tucson. And for the first time since I left, I can’t quite recall how it tasted. I swallow and my mouth feels thick and viscid and gummy. I am reminded of paste. All that comes to mind is flour and water.
I heard of the place when I first moved to Tucson and polled every person I met about the city’s hidden gastronomic gems. “Quaint little place. Only a few tables, so go early. Pasta is all homemade, but the bread...Oh, the bread!” This was inevitably conveyed with a certain drunken delirium – a smacking of the lips, rolling back of the eyeballs, with arms raised in the air. “Absolutely orgasmic. You must go.”
And so we went. Friday night dinner at the petite café in a disconcertingly drab strip mail devoid of all ambiance. We had been warned, “Don’t let the location fool you.” That afternoon, I had read online how the store’s owners, Massimo and Margarita, a young couple from San Francisco, had migrated west in search of a place to conceptualize and conceive their Italian café. A lone ravioli in a town of rellenos.
The modest room was brightly lit and separated part-store and part-restaurant by a precariously high stack of canned San Marzano plum tomatoes. Every item was authentic – imported kalamatas, infused balsamics, dried pastas in every contorted shape – peeking out from their cellophane windows like eager orphans waiting to be claimed. Sautéed garlic and lemon zest smacked you in the nostrils when you first stepped in the door, but after a while the wafts matured into rich boar ragus and eggplant caponatas. The colors in the deli case were mesmerizing – bulky tubes of beet-red salamis, polka-dotted with peppercorns, grilled calamari tossed with purple capsicums, and almond-toned panna cottas expertly molded into moon domes. We regularly devoured several baskets of bread and I was never shy about asking for refills.
It became our go-to spot - the local treasure we took visitors after the obligatory first meal at one of many spicy Southwestern joints. Sometimes, if we weren’t completely engorged, we’d round out dinner at the artisan gelato shop across the street that decorated each flavor with edible embellishments. After a few months, stopping by for a to-go loaf of the focaccia was tacked onto my regular Tuesday schedule. Gradually, I got to know Margarita and recognize her thick walnut hair pinned back with turquoise-rimmed sunglasses. She was always perched at the bar, bent over her purveyor orders, calculator in hand as a lemon wedge frolicked around the bubbles in her San Pellegrino. We exchanged small pleasantries, usually about food - What elaborate new recipe I had attempted that week or how quiet the town was since the snowbirds headed north. She always laughed and shrugged when I begged her to relinquish the trade secrets of her dough, “It’s pretty much just flour and water. It’s the pecan wood and oven that do all the magic.”
I’d like to think she was flattered that I drove four miles every week to pick up a loaf of her $4 focaccia. I’d like to think she thought of me as a local – a neighbor – a friend. But, maybe she was just being kind, gauging my loneliness. My listlessness. Maybe she knew all along what I hadn’t yet discovered. That I was busying myself, running futile errands, whipping up gourmet meals on weekdays - all to provide purpose – to fill in the gaping holes of a marriage that was turning porous. Maybe she sensed I was keeping my life glued together with her bread.
* * *
Three years later, I am curled up on my love seat in Chicago to watch the NBC Evening News. I spot a familiar storefront in the background of the makeshift TV set. The blood drains from my face and I drop the remote from my fingertips. I know as soon as I read the caption scrolling beneath the broadcast, Gunman opens fire this morning at a political gathering in a L-shaped Tucson shopping center. Six confirmed dead. Fourteen wounded. The sidewalks are already littered with teddy bears, votive candles, and pollen-dusted lillies. A “Get Well, Gabby” banner blows gently, tied with string between two Agave stalks. Before transitioning to commercial, the camera zooms in on poster leaning up against a brick wall, “God Bless America.” - child’s scrawl in red and blue crayon. And there – just behind Brian Williams’ left shoulder is my Italian café.
How many times had I driven through that center, toggling over speed bumps, waving on pedestrians pushing grocery carts, before I took an automatic right onto Ina and accelerated for home? How many Tuesdays did I reverse out of my parking space, tearing into that bread before spitefully tossing the whole thing in the back so there’d be some left for dinner?
That night I sit up in bed and think a lot about timing and chance and mortality. I wonder how a place that once brought so much comfort to me, so much normalcy, could suddenly evoke such heartache. I weigh how much more complicated the world gets as you get older - how you begin to understand questions that start with ‘why’ don’t always have satisfying answers. How some holes are just too massive to be mended by something simple.
I think of Margarita and wonder if she is still making her focaccia or if routine is something that was sacrificed that morning in Tucson. And for the first time since I left, I can’t quite recall how it tasted. I swallow and my mouth feels thick and viscid and gummy. I am reminded of paste. All that comes to mind is flour and water.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
