Repast

 A couple weeks back, I could feel despair creeping up on me. This was before the death of Chadwick Boseman. The murder of two protesters in Kenosha. It was a Sunday afternoon and I have always felt an extra dose of dread as a new week begins to creep into view. I have spent most of my life fretting about what was going to happen Monday morning. One of the more visceral memories from my childhood was breakfast for dinner. On Sunday night.

My father, blessed with love in his heart and a mild sense of responsibility to the care and feeding of his family, took it upon himself to take over kitchen duty once a week. This would expand years later to two evenings when my mother started working as a bookkeeper for a travel agent, but that was a different trauma. This one was forged in the hearth of my youth and left a mark. Waffles and bacon. Sometimes sausages. There were eggs, but I have never been a fan. To be clear: as a syrup delivery system there are very few food items more capable than a waffle. And my father was no slouch when it came to the waffle iron. He was more than capable of feeding three boys, my mother and himself until we were full and overflowing. Getting stuffed was not the problem. It was the arrival of the waffles and bacon and sausage and so forth that signaled the close of the weekend. 

I should note here, as is the case with most childhood trauma, that my memories of "every Sunday" is a flawed one and is colored by the pain I suffered in silence. I knew what a good deal it was to have a father who would cook us dinner and do it in such a way that we enjoyed the abundance and care available. It was unfortunate that I began to associate with going back to school. Not that I didn't like school. School was great. It was the looming specter of what the other kids who happened to go to school with me might have in store for me that kept my stomach in knots. I was that weird round kid who liked to write and draw. I was an easy target. Sunday night was the reminder that I was going back to battle the lions. 

I suppose if I had been fed gruel or shards of broken glass this story might have made a better point, but the mistreatment I experienced even at the hands of school bullies was primarily of the mind. What I imagined was always much worse than anything that ever really happened. I know that now. Which is why, on that Sunday night a few weeks back, I got out the milk and butter and batter mix and made my wife and I a meal of waffles and syrup for dinner. Monday was a school day, as odd as those have been for the past six months, but I wasn't going to let the menu determine my mood. It was a triumph over breakfast food. 

That night, I slept soundly. When morning came, I was pre-breakfasted. A triumph at long last.