Over the weekend, I had a moment – an epiphany of sorts. Perhaps it was just a fleeting view through an almost empty glass, but it was good.
I was standing in the market browsing maple syrup options. I love maple syrup, and am somewhat of a snob when it comes to pancakes, waffles, butter, and syrup.
Anyway, back to the telling. There between the maple leaf shaped bottles and the plastic options for fat free, sugar free, and tasteless, was a bottle of Karo syrup.
My fingers lingered over the label, while my heart was racing backwards to a clapboard kitchen where my granny sat in a straight back chair not far from the woodstove. With the practiced hands of a chemist, she poured Karo syrup in a bowl and then a stab of butter.
With her tiny hands, she gripped the bowl and beat the concoction until it was the color of summer wheat. Then she would dip one piece of bread at a time (referred to as light bread by we southerners) into the sweet batter.
And one piece at a time, we would wait patiently for a piece to be passed to us. Our little bit of heaven – our divine sacrament for living a life swelled up with blessing.
But the ‘aha’ moment was in realizing that I hadn’t told that story, and it’s also quite possible that the memory is folded just as sweetly away by my sisters and brother – in a place where treasure needs not space or name. And the thought that I hadn’t shared made me a bit sad, for surely it is a felony against creation to hoard away the best parts of us, the stories of our becoming.
Bet you know what I had for dinner Sunday evening……..
Let us speak kindly of our beginnings, memorizing anew the parts where love made us at home.
. . .
tornadoday 