A Writing Journey

An unexpected evening at my mother’s house. I am sleeping over tonight because my sister is on vacation and we worry about leaving my 85-year-old mom on her own for too long.

I see the dining room table, at which I sit, covered in a hand-knit lace tablecloth. It’s the same table that I sat at when I was in high school. So many nights at this table, writing essays, sweating over an algebra solution, or memorizing every fact for tomorrow’s test. I remember pacing around this table, reciting history facts. I would circle around and around, and around one more time. With each turn, each step, each lap of the table, I prayed I would remember.

I feel the softness of the slippers on my feet. I never wear slippers at my house. But at my mom’s house, usually at her reminding, we always wear slippers. A full selection of sizes and colours, slippers that she knits herself. I wonder, do I slip them on because mom’s house is always colder than mine? Or, more likely, is it because they bring me comfort– like a hug, from mom, for my feet?

I hear the Italian voices on the television downstairs. Mom’s hearing is going, so she always sets the volume on max.  She is working in her kitchen. I grew up with a kitchen in the basement. Nonna, as she’s known to my nieces, is vacuum-sealing sausages she made last week, the culminating step after hours of grinding the meat, stuffing the casings and finally drying those links in a well-stocked cold room. They will be preserved for many Sunday dinners to come. 

I smell the sweet scent of tomato sauce and the raviolis that my mom whipped up for dinner. It’s Thursday, and that means it’s always a pasta night at my mother’s house. We ate pasta three times a week at my house growing up. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays of course, because Sunday mass must always be capped by an overflowing plate of spaghetti. 

I taste the rockets in my mouth. Lately, my mother has this habit of leaving candy (some from Halloween or Christmas or maybe even last Easter) in dainty crystal dishes on the dining room table. They are just an arm’s length away from me as I write. This would have been my dream as a teenager, but candy was the last thing my mom left out within reach of tiny hands when I was a kid. Today, as I place a piece of rocket candy in my mouth, I wonder just how long that little bit of sweetness has been sitting around. 

A simple pleasure: enjoying the sweet taste of left-over rocket candy at mom’s house.