Packing lunches

I miss the road. I miss its empty purpose: 300 miles, 400 miles, 550 miles a day. I miss the ease of decision, a stop for caffeine or to pee or to find a patch of shade for a quick nap. I miss the voices of people I don't know reading to me from beautiful books, silly books, so-so ones. I miss memorizing passages and saying them aloud with the reader on the third or fourth listen. I miss playing the same songs over and over ("I've never done good things, I've never done bad things, I never did anything out of the blue") or setting my iPhone to play alphabetically starting in the Bs. I miss my friends in the West and the Midwest. I miss the sense of being wanted, of being loved, of being known. Leaving some crust on my plate after a late dinner, I apologized to my friend Gretchen who said, "I know you, Amelie. I know you don't like finishing things."

I miss knowing where everything was in the car at any moment -- my overnight bag behind my seat on top of Arlo's bag; secondary books for my book in a box left unopened most of the miles and shoved into the recesses of the front passenger well on the way back; primary books for my book having been perused at one point and then put away but still held close by, against the front passenger seat; Caetlin's snowshoes (a gift from her my first night in Ithaca) in the secret compartment under the flap of the trunk; the now-defunct cooler tucked under the passenger seat, surrounded by bottles of water which I would use to fill Arlo's dish in the car every day. I was carrying other loads, too -- some lightening and temporary, which I loved.

The first time I left Portland, I made it as far as Corvallis. I was then under the delusion that I would see my dad again some weeks or months later, that things would roughly return to normal and that I could continue on my way as planned. But driving just 100 miles in a day on a cross-country venture wasn't entirely normal. I wanted to spend the night with my friend Barb and to see her sister Julia and their families for some serious comfort. Once we dealt with the dog logistics in the back yard, Barb's husband Bruce greeted me inside with, "Who needs a cocktail?" From there he and Barb and Julia and Pat and I all piled into a mini-van, leaving dogs and children to fend for themselves. I do not remember what we had for dinner, beyond that it was shared and delicious and that the women all had versions of lemon drops. "Happy days," I wanted to toast, as it was my dad's toast. The next morning Barb and I picked up pastries for the family, first sharing almond cream croissants with Bruce and then heading over to Julia's where we had coffee and fruit (tiny pieces of nectarines she cut up for us) with our baked goods. And then she gave me a bag she had packed for my travels: David Sedaris's books on cd, a recipe for chocolate cake, two bags of Barbara's cheese puffs and one box of individually wrapped groups of Ritz crackers. They would both be riding with me -- Barb and Julia -- this way. The cheese puffs more the obvious marker of my friend, whereas the Ritz crackers were in reference to a previous conversation with Julia about the best way to eat Cheese Whiz. They were, for me, also an homage to my dad, who served us cheese and crackers whenever we visited his apartment -- regular orange cheddar or plain blue, usually with Saltines or Ritz, possibly Triscuits. This was the late '70s and the early '80s and before his move to the upper-crust Council Crest, where we tended more towards the tonier water crackers and a variety of cheeses. There was, I think, always cheese and crackers at my Dad's for a snack -- whether he lived with Sue or before and later on his own -- even in these last couple of years, without a proper kitchen, when he turned to Cheese-Its to eliminate the middle-man.

Once back in Santa Cruz, I had two days at my friend Irene's studio, a sample of what we had planned all along for my visit, working together, mostly quietly, reviewing what each other was doing when we needed to, and eating the lunches we picked up or that she packed for us. Irene made salads with leftover chicken from the outside grill, avocado, greens, feta cheese. We each had our own containers, so we ate directly from the bowls. Having someone make my lunch -- I honestly don't remember the last time someone had done this for me. This was no sandwich in the school lunchroom -- the disappointment of raisins with the peanut butter which I picked off one by one at the garbage can (convinced my dad had purposefully done this to torment me) or the thrill of a piece of candy discovered at the bottom of the bag. These were substantial salads, with multiple ingredients -- a heft of adulthood, an integrity of a packed lunch. I ate the salads with the same appreciation with which I admired Irene's homemade dresses when we worked together -- sensorial arts of different types -- and I wondered if I could try this at home. Could I finish the dress? Could I pack my own lunch?

The night before I finally left Santa Cruz, several days after my dad died, I stayed with my friend Jenny who made us supper for the second night in the row. This evening we had pasta with squash and onions, the veggies from her campus farm share. The pasta was dense and tender: Strozzapreti, or, scandalously, "priest stranglers." The morning I left she packed me a container full for the road. It sat on the seat next to me, with me not daring to eat it, anxious of making that week of being cared for by my friends in Santa Cruz disappear into my belly.

My first stop was Los Angeles for a last stay with Tara, Rob, and Dex. I arrived to find Tara making what had been my favorite dish when I stayed with them in the past, a mainstay of the kitchen: frittata with caramelized onions. I like how this seemingly simple dish carries the secret of the slow cooked onions. I never have the patience to make them myself. As she sautéed them at the stove, I wished the smell would come back to me -- the sweetness of the onions, the slow burn of butter. In the morning I came upstairs for breakfast. Tara handed me a loaf of bread for toast as if it were the most natural thing in the world for me to be there in the kitchen with them again. I had a slice with Nutella ("my dad died, I can eat whatever I want," I was thinking) and another with peanut butter or jam. When I was finally ready to go, Tara offered me grapes for the road. I stood a few feet away and watched her take them from the fridge, rinse them, dry them, put them in a ziploc bag. Again, a simple and natural gesture, but such care in the movement of her hands! She is doing this for me, I thought as I watched her. I ate those grapes in the car on my way to St. George, Utah that day, with every single one of them carrying something of that earlier moment in the kitchen. And for supper, in my glorious motel -- more glorious still because of its bargain -- I laid on my bed and ate Jenny's pasta, my first night on my own.

On the road two days later, I had breakfast at the Luxury Diner in Cheyenne, Wyoming -- an old boxcar decorated with maps, souvenir plastic-coated placements and, inexplicably, a small poster of Bette Davis's The Petrified Forest. Upon the waitress's advice, I ordered the pork chop with my eggs and hash-browns. To my surprise, the plate arrived with two pork chops. I was looking at my breakfast and my dinner on this giant diner-sized plate.

While I was waiting for my food, I overheard the waitress say to a 70-something man at the next table, "I'm not a mind-reader." This was an expression my dad used to use, and it sat strangely on the lips of a 30-something woman. After the grey-haired patron mumbled something, she replied matter-of-factly if not a little defiantly, "I didn't have a bad night and I didn't have a bad morning. I'm just not a mind-reader."  I was torn in my allegiances -- I felt sorry for this older man (a position I'm often strangely wont to take), who only vaguely resembled my father, and I rallied in support of the waitress, of course, who spoke my dad's words but who resembled, if only also in the vaguest of ways, me. As she passed him later with the coffee pot, she offered him a warm-up, patting his arm and calling him by name -- Frank, my dad's name. Just a coincidence, of course, which I brushed off and lingered over at the same time, relieved that they had made up. When I was finishing up my plate, wondering if it would be embarrassing to ask to take part of my breakfast "home," the waitress walked over with a styrofoam box and set it on the table next to me. For a moment, I imagined moving right through the wooden table that stood between us, as if it were only water or air, embracing her with the gratitude that engulfed me in that moment. I wanted to say, "You are a mind reader." Instead I looked at her and thanked her for giving me what I needed. Hers was, in effect, a tiny gesture -- something no doubt she does every day in skilled anticipation of her diners' needs. But she offered that white box with the ease of kindness, with a knowingness that seemed outside of the kitchen or the dining room.

I am home now. I'm not yet packing my lunches, though I did reproduce one of Irene's salads for my friend Judy. I am also trying to reproduce the dinners my friends made for me on the road, down to the Strozzapreti. They are not the same.

April 14, 1927 - August 2, 2013

I keep telling myself it's wrong to think of a cookie at a time like this. It was, in fact, the most expensive cookie I've ever encountered. The cost of a loaf of bread. The only reason I went through with the purchase, aside from the shame of sending it back to the shelf, was that originally I thought the total made it seven dollars. In fact, it was only about four, which seemed relatively reasonable. Full of oats and interspersed with chocolate chunks, with melted toffee on top and coming out of its sides, it weighed maybe half a pound. I finished it and wondered if there would come a day when I would have another. This was yesterday morning. This afternoon I returned for a second.

The night I came back to Santa Cruz after seeing my dad for the last time the evening before, I stood motionless in the cookie aisle at Shopper's Corner, weighing the possibility of buying an entire package of semi-gourmet cookies just to have one. These were the cookies I used to buy singly on Pacific Avenue, the same cookies whose warehouse marked the destination of my first driving experience after my surgery. Irene G and I went to the fabled warehouse, where the cookies were sold on the honor system for half the cost of in a store. I was so amazed by the sight of them that I forgot I couldn't smell them, though later I realized that my skin tingled with the sensation of sugar coming from the ovens and the warehouse. The night before I stood in Shopper's Corner, after I said goodbye to my dad and after I picked up my niece Katie across town and took her home, my brother offered me a plate of the dinner he'd just made. I had a piece of chicken, but refused the squash in spite of my nieces' urgings to eat my vegetables. "I'll surely have some in California," I told them. Then Katie came into the dining room furtively eating M&Ms, dropping a couple into my hand when I looked up at her, thinking maybe that was what I wanted. I followed her back into the kitchen, and she offered me more, then dropped the package into a drawer full of treats. A package of Oreos sat in the middle. "That's what I want," I told her, and took one.

When I was about 8, our babysitter Monica stayed with us while our parents were away for the weekend. My dad came home inexplicably early, just as Monica and I were about to make chocolate chip cookies. She promised to stay to make them with me, even as my dad was grumbling through the kitchen in a light rage. We were all afraid of my father. I can still see Monica standing at the counter, my father to her left, her back shielding us from him, creating a kind of wall for our cookie-making sanctuary. I remember that we were concerned about the possibility that the eggs were hard-boiled, so she was shaking one by her ear to see if she could hear it sloshing about in the shell. The egg broke in her hand instead, covering the side of her face. I remember our quiet mirth, tempered by our fear that my dad would become angry (over the mess? over our fun?). I don't remember what happened next. I see only Monica standing in the kitchen, a broken egg in her hand, laughing silently with my dad's back to her.

Some twenty years later, somewhere in the 1990s I suppose, another lifetime it seemed, I visited my dad at Our House, the AIDS hospice where he volunteered answering the phones. As he gave me a tour, the women who worked there greeted him with friendly kisses and flirty jokes, raving to me about the cookies he often baked for them. Surprised -- a little relieved, a little happy, a little resentful -- I wondered at the man before me. Who had he become?

Granted, I think I already knew my dad had started baking cookies. I think by that time he had been sending me some in boxes that he seemed to have fashioned himself, covering the tops of the cookies with waxed paper. Some involved Krusteaz biscuit mix and apple slices. "Is Dad sending you cookies, too?" I asked my brother Bow. "Yes," he said, somehow understanding the real question. "They're good if you eat them."