Sameness and change

Sunday was a ritual when I was a kid. There was a period when we went to Sunday school at Sacred Heart--long enough for my sister to receive First Communion, but not long enough for me to do it--but church didn't last; my mother wasn't as consistent as her notions about children and faith were. And her notions weren't all that consistent, either. But my Dad has always been a creature of habit, and his habits have always revolved around food, and Sunday was his day to cook: scrambled eggs and bacon and Irish sausages and black puddings. Mom would wander down at a certain predictable point in the scent cycle, and whip up scones out of flour and butter. Dad played his music on Sunday. He pulled up the top of this TV/stereo/record player unit and stacked his records under the arm: Norwegian ballads, American country, Elvis. My favorite was "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?" I still remember the record--it had the RCA dog on the center panel.

The thing is, that entire scene was dished out in degrees of bad moods: Dad complained about the cooking from the minute we got up. Complained because I didn't like bacon--complained if we wandered into the kitchen and complimented him. "It smells so good!" we'd say. "Don't touch anything," he'd reply--and it's all in the tone, all in the delivery--and we'd leave the kitchen. He complained because we made too much noise, or because Mom wasn't awake yet, or because he knew we didn't like his music. (In fact, I never thought of it in terms of like or dislike: it was Dad's sound, much like the afternoon hum of the Mets on TV; I'd hear it and fall fast asleep on the living room floor. It was reassuring noise.) Mom would come down and you could see her humor him out of the bad mood, or at least far enough out of it that he could sit at the table in silence, not barking, not grimacing. We'd have to compliment him on the food--compliments to woo his favor. He'd never respond graciously. "Well, don't expect to get this every day," was the response, every time. All of that for one morning a week in the kitchen. Never mind that Mom did it all the other 20 meals a week.

It was, I realize now, a gift gone wrong. He cooked for Mom--not for us. He loves children in the abstract, but their noise--their sass--he's never been good with that. His perfect day then was all about Mom. Sometimes she got a little tired of having to humor him, and there'd be an explosion. She always came out on top when that happened. Always. To this day. And so, to this day, he backs down before she hits the wall. What's changed is him: now he comes to me on Sunday mornings--wanders over with his coffee to talk about what he read in the online Norwegian daily, or what program he can't get to work, or what the weather will be like today. He calls me Ing--he picked it up from one of my sisters. And if I wander into his house, he turns in his chair and smiles; he's happy to see me, and he's never the first one to break off the conversation: he doesn't want me to leave.

Which is gold. And you have to believe me that I understand where he was coming from 35 years ago--that I don't blame him, exactly--but I still think what a shame it was--for all of us--that he couldn't have felt then the way he does now--that he couldn't have just put his hand on my shoulder when I was 6 and he was 35 and I wandered in by his side to smell the eggs.

***

Not that I've got it nailed, either. We--the kids and I--hang out in bed until 8 on Sundays. We talk. Liam, who wakes up alert and happy, gets silly. Maisie, who needs half an hour to wake up, stretches a lot; it's hard on her, making that 7am bus every weekday. When we wander downstairs, we wonder what we'll eat for breakfast, and sometimes we quarrel about it--and sometimes we make three different breakfasts. Sometimes we make blueberry muffins, and eat all of them with huge mugs of tea. (Today it's pancakes and hot cocoa. Skinny pancakes--the ones that fill the pan and you butter them and roll them up, and cut them into little rolled bites. Sometimes we add baking powder and pour the batter into dinosaur molds from Williams-Sonoma. Maisie doesn't care for those--"cloud pancakes"--and today Liam misses Maisie, so in her honor he has chosen the skinnies.)

I think a lot about ritual, and whether I'm delivering enough of it; I'm not my mother--I don't have her energy and her enthusiasms. I'm not social like she is. This is most evident to me during the holidays, when if she had her way the house would be filled to the rafters with people. I'm more like my father--and it's not a point of pride. I'm low to the ground--I'm steady. But I am not moody the way he was: I love it when the kids wander into the kitchen--I love it when they choose my company. Abstract is nice, too, but I love the sticky, messy, fullness of them, right in front of me. And so I just have to let myself off the hook a little bit on all the rest.

***
I start a new job in two weeks, making my stint with the Annapolis outfit my shortest since I was a cashier at the A&P in high school. I wasn't looking, exactly; the job found me. But it's a better job, with a more secure company--and it's here in Connecticut, though an hour away from where we live. It will mean big changes for the kids: I'll be out of the house every day, and they'll get off the bus to their grandparents. I've been dreading that part of it--not being as close to the everyday stuff with the kids. Liam, especially, is not pleased; what luxury we've had, relatively speaking: a single mother able to put a roof over their heads AND be at the bus stop every morning and afternoon. But I'm also so excited about the job; I haven't felt this excited about work since Maisie was born. It's time to get back into the game.

Hoping. All hopeful.