A Head of Cabbage
I open the ‘fridge and pull the pale green head out of the bottom drawer. It is still wrapped in the thin plastic bag I had put it in when I picked it from the dozens of others at the store. I strip it of this transparent skin and place it on my mother’s mother’s chopping board. It’s not her “original” chopping board, that one went to my aunt Jean, but even this “secondary” board is a piece of Grandma’s kitchen, and therefore means the world to me.
I was too young, when my grandma died, to have ever really cooked meals with her. And even if she had lived longer, I was more than likely too male. I was, nonetheless, still the only grandkid, even with my being one of the youngest, to ever be allowed in the kitchen while she cooked. She was always so particular about cooking. She rarely let anyone around while she worked, not even Grandpa, though I doubt that he much minded. Like I said, though, I was too young to have ever really helped in the kitchen, and being young I never really picked up many, if any, of her techniques, though through the years I’ve tried to recreate them somehow. My son is not yet two years old, but I talk to him about what I’m doing when I’m in the kitchen and he decided to wander in to watch. I’m 30-some-odd years old. I want to make sure he knows as much about me as possible.
I turn the water on cold in the sink and wait until it is icy before dunking the cool cabbage head beneath its steady flow. I let the water course over its waxy surface, rinsing away any grit that may be left behind, while pulling off the outer layer of its leaves. The green of the cabbage is enthralling. Especially this far along in the winter. The weather of late has taken a sharp snap to the colder. It is early January, and statistically, the average temperature should be starting to rise, even if ever so slowly. It makes me long for the spring’s return even more, this delicate pale green cabbage.
I turn off the spigot and roll the weight of the cabbage in my cold fingers, checking it for any stray grime that may still be clinging to its folds and ridges. It shines in the early afternoon light that streams into the kitchen. My son is napping or I would make it a point to show him the vividness of the green nestled in my hands. He would surely love it. And I would peel a sliver of leaf off and let him taste it.
I shake the head dry over the basin and then put it on the chopping board again and daub the extra wetness from it with a towel. I unsheathe the biggest of the knives from its block and cut the head into quarters. The crunch as it splits is heady. I core out the stem from each of the quarters and put them all into a pot that I’ve already filled with water. I turn the flame on the stove up to a medium height. In an hour or so the scent of the cabbage will soak the house with its heaviness. For now, though, I go to my son’s bedroom. I listen outside his door and can hear the barest of snuffling as he snores softly. I sit on the floor outside his room and talk silently to my grandma. I ask her what it is that he dreams about when he sleeps because he’s still too young to tell me yet.
posted 01.01.03
A Little Caprice
I did not sleep well again last night. Could be for a number of reasons: a new place can do that to you. As I lay awake my mind wandered to the past tenants who have slept in this Murphy bed before me, and who looked out these great windows as the neighborhood evolved into what it is tonight. Lake Michigan is only a block and a half away, and I cannot hear its roll and crash, nor even smell it, but mixed within the hissing and popping of the steam radiator, I can feel a music. Along the beach that is at the end of our street I know that lovers have met on long ago evenings. There was a young man once, Jewish, like nearly all of the old denizens, and he took his love to the waterside to play music for her. He stood on the beach while she sat quietly on a large rock. He was too nervous to face her as he played.
He removed his violin from its case, and the bow, and stood beneath the stars, a warm/cool breeze lifting his delicately thin hair. When the bow touched the strings his fingers tingled. As he drew the first note for her, his heart began its breaking. Saint Lubin's The Grand Caprice. He played for her, facing the waves as they tumbled in towards him. He had always loved the strength of the lake, even on stormy nights when the ice cold water was churned to an evil black froth by the early spring winds. The water gave him peace. He played for her, his music, each draw of the cat gut across the mystic strings sent dour whispers, beautiful resonances, across the face of the gently tumbling water. He played and he played, swaying, to his music, his heart so yearning for his mistresses approval, yet his mind too frightened to turn and face her.
He had never played for her before; they had only know each other for the last six months. But he wanted her to love him, no matter that she was Catholic; he knew if he loved her enough that she would come with him. And then, for the rest of their evenings together, he could play for her, they could walk down this beach in the daylight, hand in hand. He would lay his head down beside hers each night as they went to sleep. He played for her, sending the song's final notes dancing across the immensity of the lake's near placid blackness. And when he was done, he felt the sweat on his brow as it rolled softly down his cheek in the cooling night air.
He turned, then, to face his love. But she was gone. He stood for long moments waiting... For her to return... For his music to be blown back to him from across the lake by the gentle night's winds. He did not move for a very long time, just stood, looking at the small boulder she had been sitting on, before he finally realized that neither she, nor the music he had giver were ever going to return. He did not pursue her, did not seek her out, merely believed what everyone had told him: that their love was not meant to be.
It was more than ten years later when he finally saw her again, at a small grocery store. He had stopped in for a sack of sugar. She stood before him, unexpected, holding a pear in her hand. She was older, slightly, and had a baby beside her in a stroller. They talked for several minutes, exchanged smiles and regards, but the only words of their conversation that he would remember were too short and too few. "I am sorry," she said, "I only left because I did not want for you to see me cry."
re-posted 12.31.2002