Island Dreaming

Before leaving home at eighteen to go off to college and discover my own will, I had to blindly follow that of my parents. More specifically, my mother, whom I chose to stay with after the divorce---even though the divorce lawyers granted my father partial custody. I have always felt closer to, and more protective over, my mother---my father never did give her the Island Dream she always wanted.

Granted, we did live on an island, two different times actually, but that is not the kind I am talking about. Papua New Guinea and Hawaii cannot compare to the island you can bring inside your kitchen; where you can travel anywhere, in the safety of your own mind, surrounded by all types of ingredients from all ends of the world spread across the long counter-top. In the nineteen years I have been alive, my family moved seven times before the separation. I was much too young to remember the interior of all those houses, but when I recall the time we spent looking for the next place to live, all I can hear is my mother’s voice echoing in my head,

“Can you please try and find a kitchen with an island? I need space in the kitchen or I think I will go crazy.”

I think she said this because it was already hard enough cooking for four children and my dad, and on top of that, my sister and I used to always stand over her shoulder when she was cooking. This is how I learned to cook; that, and I received the highest of honors among women in my family---my mother’s cookbook. The “cookbook” is just a small wooden box with the word “recipes” carved into the top. The contents were organized like a Rolodex, and the recipes were separated into sections based on things like “desserts” or “dips”, and each recipe card was taken from a different family home and constructed as a baby shower gift for my mother. When I helped my mom cook, I would stand to her right and I often helped her stir pots on the stove or toss the salad. I can remember when the grease jumping off of the pans and onto my arms stopped hurting and began to feel like the small pinches my mother would give me under the table if I cursed at dinner.

Sometimes, she would give me a recipe card and send me to the counter-top by the sink to work alone. I was especially good at making desserts. Mom never trusted my sister to work alone, but I don’t think she ever noticed. If she did, she probably didn’t mind it. I’m sure she was much happier just standing behind our mother with her chin resting on her left shoulder. There, she could easily taste test whatever was at-hand. My mother would slowly lift a spoonful of her famous Cajun-chicken-pasta over her shoulder for my sister to taste and she would always forget why she's there and reply,

“Oh yeah, this is really good, can we eat now?” to which my mother would reply, “Well, does it need anything else? Like, more paprika?” and when my sister would inevitably shrug her shoulders, we would call my second-to-oldest-brother into the kitchen. He and my eldest brother would be sitting in the living room by now, drawn closer to the kitchen by the smell of whatever happened to be cooking that night, so all we ever needed to do was yell “BEN?”

Ben could always tell from one taste just how much of each ingredient needed to be added to make it perfect. It was as if he was a cooking robot without ever stepping in the kitchen. Maybe he used to help mom before my sister and I?