What I Ate, January 4, 2022: Table Food

This morning, I stayed in bed and let Nic walk Bela in the cold. When he returned, and Oliver called out for breakfast, I let Nic do it. Some mornings, I rise and tend to him. But some mornings, I let Nic do it. I revel in the feel of my body being literally suspended in the air by comfort. Isn’t that ridiculous? That — every single night and every single morning we had to wake up with a feeling of actually being held by some thing. To be held up by the comfort of a mattress — that itself is luxury. Remember that.

Anyway, Nic went downstairs to work (still remote due to Covid), and I stayed there. Just being warm, and held. I heard Oliver crunching his cereal in the living room/dining room/my office, and then he started to call out to me to ask me questions. I answered all of his questions, never getting up. I did think about the fact that he often wants us to be sitting with him if he’s eating something on his own. I considered this, and I wanted to go to him. But I let myself stay in bed. And to be honest? It was cuter. Nicer. He said sentences to me and I answered him back and it was like we were two friends talking across the room. With a wall between us. It felt like friendship. Which — after I really intense struggle with online learning last year and staring online learning down the barrel again today, the feeling of friendship in this house with our son — is the most precious thing.

A little bit later, when I was preparing my own breakfast, Oliver yelled up at me to “watch torquoise” with him. He says “torquoise.” He doesn’t say turquoise. He also says “miracle round” instead of merry-go round and until a few months ago, said “speed lemon” instead of speed limit.

I never want him to get the words right. What an odd thing for a writer to say. But. I never want my son to get the words right. Because when he gets the word right it will mean he has lost this beautiful part of himself where he just entertains the idea that a word could be something other than what it is. Occasionally, I will throw words that I feel like I have partially made up into something that I’ve written. It feels strange but it feels good. Because it is me returning to the better part of me. The one that entertains that I might not know the structure of every word and the spelling of every word or even the breadth of our available words — and that I don’t know have to know what is R I G H T but I do know what feels R I G H T to let fall out of my fingers/mouth.

Anyway. When my stovetop café latte was finished, I sat down at the dining room table/living room and cleared everything out of the way so I could focus on the food in front of me, and eat. And looked over at my snoozing kitten. And my sleeping dog.

The kitten is still fresh, here. She’s been here just over two months. I spent the first few days after her arrival, observing her, unwilling to love.

I wasn’t unwilling to have her here — I could just tell in my chest and in my body — that I was unwilling to love her. I only let my eyes rest on her for a few moments at a time and never with softness. Always with a bit of a squint — half-closed, half-seeing her. So that I wouldn’t have to see her completely — in case she suddenly disappeared.

You know that you have to be willing to love, right?

Love without willingness is not love. It is more like apathy.

**

This afternoon, the three of us met at the dining room table in the living room again. I cleared off my workspace (I work remotely as well,) and Ollie and I split a box of mac & cheese and had some broccoli on the side. Nic had ramen. Nic and I both felt like shitty workers and didn’t want to take the time to eat, seated, all together, but knew that we should. Ollie had a one glass of water, and one glass of apple juice. He looked up at me, cheekily, and remarked that both glasses looked like various shades of pee — and that he knew that he was supposed to make his pee look more like the water and less like the apple juice. Still, he drank only the juice. The water sat there until 6pm, when I told him he had to finish it because his poor body was in dire need of hydration.

**

Last night, we had McDonald’s for dinner. That’s not easy for me to admit. I don’t like to be someone who has McDonald’s. There’s a lot going into that statement, and I don’t need you to accept it all, but I will state it because it’s the truth. The point of telling you this is that right before we put Ollie to bed, he yelled out to us — very concerned , and a little bit angry — “…But we didn’t have dinner!” And we said “Oh honey, we did. McDonald’s. In the car.” But something we have noticed — which we are actually marking as a huge accomplishment on our end — is that — if Oliver doesn’t eat dinner at the dining room/living room table, Oliver doesn’t think he has eaten dinner.

I remember like zero dinners sitting around the table in our home growing up. I mean zero. And already we have taught Oliver that his body is supposed to be planted here in a chair with the two of us on either side in our living room/dining room, every night. Or it doesn’t count. This is bad news for all the nights that we may eat elsewhere, but this is good news for knowing that we have solidified that food is something we eat together at home. That it, kinda sorta — counts more here. Probably because it does.