A Story(ies) of Being Fed

...at every turn on the road.

Early for a book talk in northern Ohio, I was startled by my entrance to a memory care home similar to where my mother lived in her final years in Cincinnati. Amidst the October darkness and rain pelting my coat, what was this welcoming that blew in? Was it her?

The next morning, after a long walk with my sister, Jeanne, we rounded back to my Airbnb with a whole host of groceries she bought. I dove straight into the plums and chocolate-covered pomegranate fruity things. Jeanne knew how to feed me—we had learned from the best.

This is my theme for the times. Stories of being fed. A homage to the woman, my mother, who taught me this manner of faith.

Following presentation number two, my sister and I met for dinner at a small Thai restaurant. The lemongrass soup was perfection in its clarity of broth, simple shreds of chicken, and stalks of lemongrass looping around my spoon. Jeanne’s pad Thai arrived, and I was unable to resist. Rain again showered my mood with deeper thoughts. Here my sister was again feeding me. This incarnation of my mother, not just by her association in name with my mother, Jean. I drank in all the soup, all the spirit my sister had to give, leaving nothing behind.

The road again beckoned at dawn. Nerves piled one on top of the other, such that there was no room for food in my belly. A business meeting I’d been anxious over, ended past time.

Famishment washed over me, and threatened to bury me beneath the culinary landscape now in front of me. Finally, a full-blooded store of fine Italian foods.

A knock inside my stomach lining caused a paunch. Several times the store clerks asked if I need help. I did. Of the ancestor kind. Of the stregoneria – the witchcraft – employed to keep one coming back to the table. The kind that drew me to loaves of Italian bread lined up the likes of which Jesus had never seen, their rising to perfection still present in the air before noon. I squeezed a few in their bags, testing for their level of crustiness, for that loaf we ate as children. But childhood always tasted better in our memory than in our mouths. As I debated canned or dried fava beans, an elder man in my aisle shopped for one. He had all the look and feel of my father, the still tan arms, the small stature, beginning to tell a story. He wanted to talk history. I, the willing student, lapped it up until he had no more to give.

After one last presentation and more mileage consumed by car, I told my sister, “Come over. I found an Italian market on my jaunt. I’ve got bread, wine, and cheese.” We created our own transubstantiation. If bread was body, and wine was blood, then cheese was the intangible—the mind and soul.

The scheduled slowed toward week’s end. While no homemade meals appeared on my plate, I felt oddly comforted and satiated. There was breakfast with my college bestie, Jill. Ordering tacos, I was gifted with stories from another time, how another family fed me, hers. And a dinner or two out with Jeanne, tapas with the part-Italian server at the Argentinian steakhouse. Espresso martinis and oysters served while we sat looking out over a blank Lake Erie. If the sight of water calmed the mind, then continuously being fed and looked after rested the bones.

Throughout the week, I brought pasta and cannoli to my older sister’s care home, then chicken tenders. She greeted me with waves of enthusiasm. Saucy radiatori slid down her throat as I read Alda Merini poems in Italian to her. On my third and final visit, I carried no food. She slept until I whispered about a long drive to Cincinnati looming. On my walk toward the exit, my head turned to watch as she clapped for me the entire length of the hall. How could someone who had so little to hand over, give me her all?

I return to the innate need we have inside each one of us to feed the other.

Saturday began with cappuccino and a hazelnut biscotti. In the middle, there were meatballs that melted away, cavatelli bobbing in sauce that kind of, sort of, but not really, tasted like Mom’s (and mine). And the feeling of being home, among Italian Americans, who touted their faith, family, ambition—as the Italian American Museum of Cleveland used as their tagline. Amidst that was most common, common denominator—food.

On my way back to Cincinnati, my stomach was done. I stopped to visit my first in-laws. Judy took one look at my face, maybe my stomach, and knew I couldn’t take in her famous apple dumplings. “Can I take them home?” Food had connected us for so long, like it did when we came together for Devin. And now, as we remembered the zeal with which he ate all on his plate, and in life.

The rain never stopped. The squeak of wipers drove me nuts. Trying to focus, I was thinking. Or my stomach was.

How, when we are starved for something we cannot name, others step in to feed us.

Crusted salmon, a long hug, and blue, blue eyes to match skies I hadn’t seen in a week awaited at home. When I grabbed for the apple dumplings, I said to Mark, “Judy sure knows how to do comfort food better than anyone I know.”

Did I crash that night, come down from my sugar and bread high of the week? Where did it stop, this feeding of others to find our way into their heart, or to open one up instead. Did it have to end?

Two nights later, the answer came in the form of my college-aged niece, Sophia. After eating tacos in the neighborhood, she returned with Mark and I to the house. We dove our spoons into her favorite gelato—pistacchio from UGO, handcrafted by a few Italians I knew. Bowls removed of evidence of creaminess, I had started to say, “Do you want to take home some…?”

“Yes!” Sophia shouted. The answer was always yes.

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I love this time of year to prep for what’s to come! A few new offerings will be on the calendar for 2024. We’re taking the caregiving writing workshops to a new level and offering a more craft and public reading options soon. Stay tuned.

November 8

Pauletta Hansel and I offer our quarterly FREE, virtual caregiver writing experiences, through Giving Voice Foundation. Next up, Nov 8 from 10-12 p.m. Learn more or register here. Next up, February. Watch this space, or visit givingvoicefdn.org.

November 18

Don’t miss this year’s Books by the Banks book festival. I don’t have a “book in the race,” but I’ll be co-hosting a writing workshop with Ashley Ferguson at noon. Join us! And come out to support your local authors.

SAVE THE DATE: November 19

In time to prep your appetite for Thanksgiving, I’m partnering with a local restaurateur and wine shop for a sipping and storytelling event. Check back here for details on signups!

December 8

I’ll be introducing renowned poet, writer, editor, and teacher Maggie Smith at Women Writing for (a) Change, for an evening of moving readings and conversation. Writing workshop, Saturday. Space is limited. Visit womenwriting.org for details.