“My daughter is learning to cook. I feel proud. I feel guilty.” Motherwell, March 18, 2024.
Cooking may have a rich history in my family, but that history is almost exclusively female. My children have noticed. Although I required both kids to learn the same survival menu of grilled cheese, eggs, and a smoothie, my son’s culinary interest ended once we unplugged the blender. His sister will seek me out to bake cookies; he will add chocolate chips if he can eat the rest of the bag.
“Back of the box recipes from Great-Grandma? Family treasure.” The Christian Science Monitor, March 6, 2024
He craves heirlooms, provenance. If only there was a piece of antique furniture from a great-aunt, a Civil War saber from a distant cousin. If only there was treasure. There is a set of floral china, pieced together by my grandma from mid-’90s estate sales, but that’s not quite the legacy he yearns for. To his old soul, we’re mostly a profound disappointment: a family that doesn’t keep things.
“The Sacred Space” The Unmooring, issue 2, page 50 (text-only version)
It would be many more years before I would arrive at an uneasy peace with my spiritual wandering. I would endure many more dark nights of the soul, many cataclysmic moments of transcendence, before I accepted that I’ll never settle for only one way of knowing God.
Before any of that, there was a Saturday night in early April. It was the day before my due date, and as I settled my massive, unbalanced body into bed next to my husband, we both thought everything was fine—aside from the indignities of late pregnancy, of course.
“A Wildness Not Distant From Ourselves.” The Unmooring, issue 4, page 10
I had always explained this lack of success by saying I just wasn’t a plant person. The many plant deaths suffered at my hands had nothing to do with my utter ignorance of their basic light, water, or nutrient needs; it was fate. Some people were born with green thumbs, I said. Mine was black.
A label like that is nice for the ego. As long as I was a non-plant person—or, less charitably, a plant killer—I had an excellent excuse not to try too hard to keep them alive. Trying is a vulnerable endeavor. It’s alerting others that you want something you don’t have, and for most of my life, that was not the kind of information I wished to disclose.
Freelance
Lisa Swander is a freelance writer specializing in literature, education, adolescent development, and psychology. She is a National Board Certified Teacher with fourteen years of classroom experience with middle and high school students. She holds degrees from Ball State University in English education and educational psychology. For freelancing inquiries, contact Lisa here.
