Reflections of normalcy at dinner

Thunder jarred me making noise amidst a soft summer rain the other night. I looked at the pewter sky striped with baby blue and let the rain heal me.

My friend stopped over yesterday to take my son out. They surprised me with early Mother's Day gifts. A bouquet of daisies popping in turquoise, lime, fuschia and deep purple. A juicy blueberry pie, my favorite, followed.

Going out to dinner became my immediate thought as my son issued his "I'm hungry, mom," cry. But the soft melody of the rain lulled me into thinking of cooking dinner. Spaghetti would suit the mood.

I took out cans of ruby stewed tomatoes, fat bulbs of garlic, a rooty carrot, fragrant green onion stalks, golden olive oil and began creating something from nothing. For me, the scent of simmering tomatoes and garlic sizzling in olive oil comforts me.

We toasted thick Italian bread that we rubbed garlic and olive oil on under the broiler until they crisped and turned a healthy golden. Lettuce was roughly chopped and mixed with fleshy black olives, soft avocado, carrot shreds and tossed in oil and vinegar.

When J and J came in to help me cook, I was so damned happy. It felt like the family I always wanted but never had. My J and I spend so much time together just the two of us --- but somehow it seems lonely. Like there's this missing component or rather, the elephant in the room choking us but that we don't talk about.

As strange as it may sound to a lot of you -- if not all of you -- the normal mundane things that people experience every day are just the type of things I crave and can't seem to get a hold of. Like trying to catch a fly with just your hands. You're certian you've caught it, until you slowly open your hand to reveal. . . nothing.

Will it ever happen? I wonder. I hope.

@L'uragana