Breaking Bread

Hey, y'all. Here's my contribution on both bread and kinship. That's kinda cheating, I realize, but as I contemplated the two topics, I knew I couldn't separate them. Aixois is my family and we are that because we have shared so much over "bread."

Also, I realize the criticism of "not enough" will come here. This is something I would like to play with and expand at some point. That's just an FYI.

Enjoy!

LLM

***

“It was never more’n just a little knockabout place. . . . It’s funny how a little place like this brought so many people together.” This is how Mrs. Threadgood describes the Whistle Stop Café to Evelyn Couch in Fried Green Tomatoes.

“A little knockabout place”—I’ve known a few of those. The most significant of them is a little French restaurant and coffee bar called Aixois that’s not a hundred paces from the home where we moved when I was a junior in high school.

At that time my grandparents moved out to Washington state, and my mom and her partner bought their house. Mom and I had been in our little house on Madison for thirteen years. For me, the move meant leaving the house that symbolized our survival after dad’s death; it meant I could no longer hide from my friends that my mother was in a relationship with a woman, something I had not shared with anyone since I’d been teased about it in grade school; it meant saying goodbye to the grandparents who had been such a big part of my growing up; it meant moving out of the parish that had been my home. I recognized it as a good thing for mom and Ruth, but I did not see it as such a good thing for me.

About three months after we moved into the house Aixois opened. Ruth started working there as the coffee bar manager, and the place became a regular hangout. On Saturday mornings I would wake early, grab a book, and head across the street to claim one of the round wooden tables by a window. With a cup of tea and a chocolate croissant I would immerse myself in whatever I was reading at the time—Joan Chittister, Lord of the Rings, schoolwork, Toni Morrison.

Coffee shop regulars are a particular breed. The baristas know their drinks of choice. They have particular places they like to sit. They watch, somewhat haughtily, when nonregulars navigate coffee shop intricacies—trying to find the sugar and creamer, figuring out the menu, discerning the best table to occupy. Coffee shop regulars know one another and congregate.

And so it was that after several months of early mornings at Aixois, a regular crowd formed. They included mostly middle-aged women, some men, and me, the communal daughter. Gay and straight, professors and doctors, chiropractors and journalists. We gathered on Saturdays and Sundays to check in with each other, to laugh and share, to break bread.

Our lives are a succession of communities: we’re part of one and then we move on, carrying the memories, the people, the places. It’s odd anymore for people to remain part of one community for their whole lives. They may maintain contact with the people, but the community shifts and changes. Such has happened with Aixois. I consider the men and women of that regular group of customers to be family. They are home to me. I no longer live one hundred paces from the door of Aixois; I no longer have the gift of breaking bread with these people daily or weekly. But it is a comfort that they still go, they still laugh and meet and talk. A little knockabout place indeed.

Ashegon Lake

Our theme for this week: Kinship

This is a picture of the most beautiful place in the world.

I know what you're thinking. This is hardly picturesque. The water is grey-black and what's with that old raft? This may be many things, but it is certainly not beautiful.

It is a photograph taken from the screened in porch of my family's cabin in Northern Wisconsin. That's my Gran on the dock along with my younger brother. Grandma built the cabin with my grandfather 50 years ago. It's the place where my brothers, cousins, and I all passed our summers.

I had, overwhelmingly, a really beautiful childhood complete with brothers with whom I could fight, a big shaggy dog, and a lovely big backyard with a fort and a tree to climb. But summers at the lake were perfect. We swam, played cards and ate ice cream with our great aunt, had campfires, told ghost stories, hiked and most importantly, learned to fish.

My entire family fishes, including my 86 year old grandmother. It's one of the few enjoyments that we all share (that and a love for Jarts) and can do very amicably as a family. It's something I do very rarely now that I live in Minnesota, but every year I meet my folks at the cabin for a weekend during their vacation. Pa and I usually head out at least once to go fishing together and it is a moment I cherish every year. It's a moment to remember and offer a small prayer of gratitude for my life and keep those memories and relationships as part of my present.

***

Ashegon Lake

The sun has already gone behind the ring of trees

surrounding the lake when Dad fires up the motor

on Grandma's old boat. I run down the three concrete steps,

step off the dock and into the boat beside him,

careful not to spill the worms we dug out of the earth earlier.

My hands are dirty, like his, as are my jeans and old shoes.

I drop a cooler full of PBR and a bucket behind us and off we go.

When we get to the beaver dam, I'll dangle my feet in the water.

He'll cast and have a fish before I'm finished untangling my line

and cussing the slipperiness of the worms.

We'll talk, a little, He'll tell me how he met Mom, ask about work.

But mainly, we'll drink our beer, fish for smallmouth and panfish,

anticipating the crackle and pop they'll make

filleted and frying in a pan of hot oil