In poetry: Full disclosure, I know Gina Williams in real life. In fact, both of her sons were students in my English classes but of course they didn’t share that she was a writer/artist because how horrifying that their teacher might have a friendly, admiring relationship with their mom. Also, it’s entirely possible they didn’t even realize she (or I) was a creative person; parents are largely invisible when they aren’t just plain stupid. Duh.
This poem speaks to me as a fellow mother of a cynical1 boy as well as a fan of blackberries and also a baker, though pie is the last thing I usually choose to make; me and a good flaky crust are, if not outright enemies, on tenuous terms.
I love the quiet nods to motherhood she includes here, with their comfortable wandering together, sharing buckets - his emptying into hers - and the guilty wondering about how much she enjoyed before and what she is leaving for him, but still there is so much real, easy love.
If You Wish To Make a Pie from Scratch, You Must First Invent the Universe by Gina Williams Sunday morning, and I'm picking wild blackberries for a pie with my son. He's seventeen now, big hands thick and rough as paws, yet gentle, deft around the thorns. We glean fruit along the path and because he pours his berries into mine, his bucket never fills. The talk between us is easy, soft summer air just right, dark juice staining our fingers. A lone wasp lingers on a leaf, and our conversation turns to the state of things here on earth. My son admits - or maybe reveals/screams/shouts - that he has lost hope for the world. The planet could do with about six billion people less than the seven billion crowding it now - "At least you had the chance to see it before it was hopeless," he says, and my heart shudders. "Did I?" I ask out loud, guilty. "Maybe it was hopeless then too, and I just didn't know it yet." After supper we'll eat warm pie on the porch, watch the horizon glow red, laugh about nothing, laugh and laugh.
In movies: On the topic of families & food & the dangers of losing hope, I’m reminded of Minari. It came out a few years ago to much critical acclaim and some well-deserved award nods & wins. At the time, I was mostly excited to see Steven Yeun in something more substantial + less gruesome than The Walking Dead though I was also fascinated by a story we rarely, if ever, hear about in US history classes. Writer/director Lee Isaac Chung created this film partly as an homage to his South Korean immigrant parents, who moved him & his sister to Arkansas in the 1980s to start their own farm. For many in agriculture at that time business was difficult, but that life for Asian folks in the South was particularly challenging. This movie shows the labors not only of their feat but also all the details involved in ‘Becoming American’, with each family member (including recently-emigrated grandma Soon-ja) having a distinctly different picture of what that means. Yeun is a powerhouse in this role, overall calm & understated yet determined to succeed, especially in the presence of his character’s doubting mother-in-law. All of the actors are gently effective in their roles, though Youn Yuh-jung brings everyone & everything together with her performance. She is the one who eventually explains the title of the movie - minari is a vegetable used in many Korean dishes, and it grows easily even in less-than-ideal conditions. A beautiful metaphor for this family, smartly done. Do yourself the favor of finding this movie at Netflix and savor it
In food: This week, I was reminded of how my 6th grade teacher had us record what we ate every day for a week so we could examine our nutrition. On good days (rare), I would go to my grandparents’ house next door for some bacon or sausage, cinnamon toast, and a hearty glass of milk but most of the time I left my house in an anxious rush to the bus stop after a gulp of orange juice, with a barely toasted Pop-Tart in my hand. That teacher called my mom at the end of the week to discuss my habits, which was not only mortifying in the sense of My Teacher Calling My Mom but I also found it appallingly sexist (why not talk to my dad about it, too?) and classist (how did he know we could afford nutritionally sound foods?), though I wouldn’t have exactly been able to articulate that at 11-years old. Mostly I was embarrassed because of the distasteful way he said “Pop-Tarts” out loud in class; I felt like I had misrepresented & disappointed my parents by not eating the “proper” foods they provided. But, my mom kept buying Pop-Tarts and she didn’t tell me to eat differently after that, so I kept sleeping in & reading before school instead of getting up earlier and preparing a meal. And I think I turned out fine.
When I started raising my kids and teaching other people’s, I thought often of that teacher, not so much for teaching nutrition as for making assumptions about people and shaming their choices. I do spend time assessing ingredients and also investigating companies, in order to decide what I want to put in my body, and which values to support with our purchases.
And right on cue with this memory, Target recently offered a discount on a new product: toaster pastries by Ghetto Gastro. I love their story, their mission, their look, their taste - these have a crisp exterior giving way to a soft, bready texture surrounding a thick spread of real strawberry filling. Could I make something like this on my own, as a decent baker/someone who owns a toaster and jam? Of course. But I also want to lift up a talented, thoughtful group of folks, while I sleep in and read more.
(but mostly sensitive & thoughtful, which he unfortunately sometimes translates into bitterness)