Mom and Dad – as seen in the cherished, stolen photo:
Well now, that’s an odd title for a food blog – except to say that every once in a while the clouds part and you are struck with some awesome little irony and insight into yourself.
You know this title from the autobiographical book by Norman Maclean or more popularly from the movie from 1992 directed by Robert Redford and starring Brad Pitt. But, I have a different perspective on this metaphorical phrase.
For many people, the idea that not a day goes by that we can find essences of our parents coursing through our thoughts, deeds, missions, ideas, ambitions, interests, talents, initiatives, modus operandi, be they consciously or unconsciously, can be an uncomfortable, if not disturbing thought. However, as I finished up my post earlier this morning talking about peasant foods, something transcendent occurred to me.
Around 20 years ago, I had my wallet “lifted” out of my purse in the ladies room of an Upper East Side restaurant called Mezaluna. It was astounding how professionally this theft was performed – but that is beside the point. In that wallet was a polaroid snapshot of my parents which was taken, perhaps when I was around 10 or 12, and it was the only shot I had of them together where they both looked content and relatively well. I don’t know what the occasion was but my Mom had on a simple white sheath dress which I can recall precisely, and my Dad was dressed in a suit. I was heartbroken, not because I had lost all my credit cards and other photos, but because I had lost that particular photo, and it was irreplaceable.
This morning as I was writing along, I realized that each day that I write of, make or think about food, my Mom is like a River Runs Through It – only she’s the river and the It is me. Then, I thought that each time I write or snap a photo of flowers or buildings, it is like a River Runs Through It and the River is my Dad. While it couldn’t be more true that I do things totally differently than they ever did, I had to stop and take some time today to think about this.
Very often memories of our parents and the thought that we could somehow resemble “them” in one way or another can resurrect memories that are off-putting or worse. But for me, as the years have passed and the pain has subsided some, I can feel I am more than lucky to have this river running through me.
Yesterday, it was memories of my Mom making Pasta Fassole (Fagoli) and her Cannellini Bean Terrine. I also started a post about Choux Pastry – and her cream puffs – a treat she lovingly made for us on “ordinary days”. Yes, my Mom was just a gem. She was industrious in the kitchen and lovingly gave the fruits of her oven to us daily.
I also often find myself completely awestruck by the beauty, little and large, in the outdoors and in architecture and art, and I recall how my Dad loved plants, garden design, and was drawn-in by buildings, symmetry, drawing, had the instinctive eye of a master and was affected by all visual beauty around him. He also loved music and loved to sing. The memories of losing these two people in the way I did still haunt me, but I know that the best way to honor and acknowledge all that was wonderful about them and their contributions to me is to keep the river running, and to channel and celebrate their essences as they have developed in me.
It is so funny to think that this is just about exactly what I am doing these days – and honestly this is the first time I have recognized the profundity of this to this extent in me. To say that I am happier now in vocation than I have been in very many years is an understatement, and I attribute it to being able to resurrect these ideas and their corresponding feelings and live them out.
To say that I miss my Mom and my Dad very much and am so sorry that my kids don’t have them in their lives now is a source of great sadness to me. But, I can keep those coursing flows of the River running through to them as well – as I actualize myself – after oh so many years.
Perhaps, as I was thinking yesterday that college is often wasted on the young, after I had been dismayed that Ryan didn’t seem to care that he’d missed Christine Lagarde at Georgetown, perhaps, more interesting is the idea that the value of one’s parents is also wasted on the young. Too often we saw them through the lens as annoying, restrictive, overprotective, old-fashioned, out-of-fashion, lost-in-the-past-dinosaurian obstacles to our freedom and individuality. To this very day, my two favorite memories are of my Mom stuffing a turkey at the kitchen sink and my Dad singing, with a full heart, Christmas Carols along with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, etal on Christmas Eve. These were indeed their very essences.
And so, if I had to replace that stolen cherished photo of my Mom and Dad, I would replace it with the four above, two of Mom and two of Dad – for that would be the closest to the River I could get. Perhaps what I lost was a dog-eared photo and not them at all.