Wonton spoon: Warmth, mom, cold snowy days, steam wafting up from the bowl to greet the nose of hungry, happy children.
Playing outside, the crunch of snow between our eager mittened hands pressing it into mischievous ball shape. Sharp air inhaled into warm lungs, the shock of it startling, delighting me.
I’m alive! I exist!
And I don’t need to feel manufactured or real-but-unnamed rage to make me feel this.
It’s like swallowing love, my mom’s wonton soup scooped up by a boat shaped porcelain spoon. She folded the wontons. She made the soup, boiled shaved fish and green onions in a pan of water, threw in chunks of kobu and generous amounts of soy sauce and white pepper.
I don’t ever remember her coming out to play in the snow with us. She just did her magic in the kitchen, and like a wave of wand made bowls of soup appear, serving warmth and caring. In those moments she said “I love you”.
Not just to us, but to me. Maybe she looked at me when she placed the bowl down in front of me, maybe she didn’t, but in that moment, it was as if she did — look at me, not through me or past me or with vacant eyes that saw only the thoughts running through her mind.
I felt loved. I felt seen. And I ate everything in that bowl as if I would never eat again.
[Writing prompt: Write about an object in your kitchen, 5 minutes, go! From the workshop, Unlocking Memory through Food and Free-Range Writing with Meesha Halm during the HerStories March Summit 2023… this caught me by surprise. Revised just a bit with a change of word here or there, and commas for publishing.]
