We got a good deal for our table from a guy right down the street. He even delivered it for us. It's solid and if you bang your knee against the inside frame just under the table top you'll swear you hate the thing. The top needs refinishing, but kids, so we'll leave it. And we have left it that way, scratched and stained, losing a little color each day. They protest when we discuss a new finish I protest at the work it will take only to have it scuffed and smeared with, life. I fuss at everyone who doesn't use a coaster, but why bother? The kids say it adds character. And it does. There's space for 6 or 8 or 12 or more, we've stopped counting. We manage to squeeze ourselves in when friends and family visit. Taking turns sitting at the table, much like we did at Nana's. It's held up well. Sophia's first birthday, the first big event It's hosted countless others Visits from Mom and Dad along with Dad's pile of newspapers, notes, pens, reading glasses, mugs of his piping hot coffee and a small mountain of Mom's tamales. Halloween parties Tortilla making lessons A birthday candle lined with Tacky Glue, sprinkled with gold glitter and sequins. My best friend's graduation party. Homemade pizzas-- so many homemade pizzas. Writing sticks of all shapes and colors Spilled bowls of Cheerios 5 layer Play-Doh cakes Mixology experiments: Mexican martinis, wine-usually red, blackberry margaritas, strawberry mojitos, and the good anniversary crystal bubbling with cheap champagne. An almost empty wine glass, a red ornament, and a red pear gnawed with a little kid’s bite protesting “Mommy I didn’t like it!” adorns the end of a "fancy" Christmas dinner. That night we used a tablecloth. Snow days with pancake breakfasts. Piles of papers that needed grading. Homework-- the kids' and mine. Hours of graduate school assignments Science fair and craft projects LEGO builds and chatter Family game nights A thick smear of blue paint from a Halloween costume making session and nail polish drips I couldn't remove. Gingerbread house building parties that stopped because we outgrew the table and got so darned busy taking kids to holiday related school activities. GNO get togethers where we all sit around and color, jars of colored pencils, pens, and markers snaking down the center of the table. Pandemic teaching Online Sunday night meetings with family across the miles. Writing every morning, at least three pages, with a coffee mug by my side. Asking for and giving grace. They say home is where the heart is. Ours gather around this table where we live and breathe, hope and dream. And sometimes, we eat here, too.
Tag: reflective writing
Big Tent Revival: Deviled Food
I don’t dance. I don’t dance because Nana said I’d go to hell. I’m afraid of going to hell. I’m afraid of how hot hell is and of the devil poking and prodding me with its pitchfork and its snake-like tail whipping around me. Why is it when I hear music, it bubbles inside me and I’m giddy? It makes me feel like there’s another person inside that wants to come out and laugh and have fun and move and sway. I like the idea of being that fun person who doesn’t care that people watch her move in response to the rhythm and makes up her own swirls and twirls and is just flat out happy. Nana’s voice always stops me.
I didn’t want to dabble with the devil and dancing. When you’re a rule-following first-born (mostly) and spent most of your formative years with your Pentecostal grandma, that’s what you do. No questions allowed because you respect your elders.
“¡Los bailes son del diablo! Dios no quiere que estemos en los bailes. Debemos estar glorificando al Señor.”
No matter how fun and harmless it seemed, dancing never worked for me. I’m stiff and have robotic dance moves. I imagined myself having a good time and maybe even having a boy pull me in close to move in sync with the music. I stared wistfully at other kids while I stood around, the poster child for a wallflower.
I didn’t understand the harm. If people have fun how can dancing be the devil’s work? Why is it so evil? Most kids didn’t even touch each other while they danced unless it was a slow song. Even then, why was that worthy of getting to hell when there were other people around?
I didn’t ask Nana why, she just said to stay away from it. I found that confusing, coming from someone who bought deviled ham on sale from Piggly Wiggly. She fed it to me on days she took care of me while my parents worked. She spread the pink mush on slices of white bread when she packed lunches for all of us as we piled into Papá’s pick-up truck early summer mornings to work the cotton fields. She bought tons of little pull-tab cans, neatly wrapped in white paper stamped with a red devil holding a pitchfork, its pointy arrow tail snaking around, mocking me. You can’t dance because it’s the devil’s work, but here, eat the devil’s meat.
I hated the stuff but ate it anyway because that’s what she packed: sandwiches with salty slimy pink sludge that tasted nothing like ham, smeared on bread. I envisioned a bunch of mashed up devils’ tails packed into those tin cans, with the red faces daring me to eat, winning my soul through hunger.
When I see anything with fiendish depictions, I think about how Nana would respond. I’d take her to Torchy’s and probably get an ear full of Bible verses for taking her to a taco joint emblazoned with cute devilish cherubs tempting you into gluttony. I might order her the Democrat and a margarita, especially since she wasn’t a drinker. She’d denounce the place because she could make better tacos at home, for less, and feed twice as many people. And she’d be right.
She might even top them with a possible nemesis, maybe the devil’s brother, Diablo Verde sauce I found at HEB. The hot one is too damn hot for me, but if you mix it with sour cream, the heat is worth it. The devil is always among us, even in our food. Every time I see a feisty little sprite or hear soul-stirring music, Nana’s voice pops into my head with advice for staying out of hell and I’m reminded about how much I miss her. Except now, I eat at Torchy’s and I might even dance a little.
Nerds Beget Nerds 