I need a sole

Every Easter my mom sets up long tables in the back yard and the family eats dinner with the grass under their feet and home made applesauce on their plates. We stand in a circle and my grandpa leads prayer, thanking God for family and blessings as the kids squeeze each others hands until someone erupts in silent laughter. Then almost as if we have done it a thousand times, paper plates are distributed and a line forms without pushing or shoving up to the collective fruits of each adult’s kitchen. There are green beans with tiny caramelized onions, honey baked ham, soft white rolls with flour dusted on the tops, crunchy coleslaw, the spread is all packed onto the kitchen counter without the space for air in between it all. If food was meant for mere sustenance, than the joy of family would be enough and we’d eat pop tarts in between the egg hunt and the embarrassing questions about my tattoos. But food is more than just filling our bodies or showing off our skills with a casserole dish. We sit around tables with those whom we love- be it at Christmas Eve or family meal in a kitchen. This week has been very emotional for me, with Wednesday leading to me actually getting sick from the stress. Tallahassee will be very busy for the next couple of days and I am a thousand miles from it in every way. I don’t know if I have ever felt like this before, a feeling of disappointment and guilt and sadness and frustration, for the most part it has been the only thing that I can think about. But tonight before service when the kitchen was quiet and we were all preparing for the storm that was brewing on the books, I looked around and realized something wonderful. In that moment I didn’t want to be any where else but standing there peeling garlic. I’d rather be in that kitchen with those people running up those stupid stairs than any where else in the whole world. People would sit down and eat the food that we were cooking and it was going to change their life. We make the best meals that people have ever had. There’s something very special in that. For me food provides a stability that people cannot. Don’t believe the lies you tell yourself- that which you cannot control is countered by that which you can. At the end of the night when I take off my hat and fill the soap bucket to scrub the prep area Modesto will ask me "What you lookin' for, mamacita?" The answer he wants to hear is "Once y medio, abuelo." But after making fourty two people very happy all I can do is move the robot coup back into it's place and think to myself, I've already found it.