Saturday, February 20, 2016

Homesick For Pizza And The People Who Come With.


Lately, when I overhear tourists from the United Kingdom or the United States I linger as long as I can just to hear the thing that unites me to them; their English conversations. Yesterday, I even rode the train an extra stop just to listen. Coming home to English speaking flatmates is something I am beyond fortunate for. And joining the American library full of English books, movies, and exit signs, is where I have truly found sanctuary.

Springtime table setting. 
Homesickness is a strange thing. Besides the fact that I have mastered how to order "kebab and fries with salad but without sauce and to takeaway" from the restaurant on the corner, my French is not exactly fluent. I finally understand why it is called a foreign language. To be constantly surrounded by a vocabulary and culture so different from my own is exhausting. It's like getting dressed up to watch a foreign film,without subtitles, in a fancy theater in the city. While traveling is beautiful, enriching, and culturing, sometimes I just want to stretch out on my couch and watch one of my favorite family comedies from when I was a kid.

Two nights ago I watched Stand By Me on Netflix, one of my Step-Mom's favorites, and halfway through I realized I had forgotten I was in Paris. I felt like I was back in the house I grew up in on a warm spring night, watching a movie with my family after our Sunday ritual of takeout from our favorite South Jersey pizzeria. I could so clearly imagine the warm glow of the ceiling lamp over the kitchen table.

With the breeze blowing in through our wooden sliding door and our cat Tiger sitting just on the back step, we dined. He observed so many dinners with laughter and thought provoking discussions. Even though the invitation was extended frequently to join us indoors, Tiger for some reason preferred to observe us from outside our cage. Our other cats were the ones that would cuddle force their way onto your lap and demand your love and attention while watching a movie.

Self portrait of me and my favorite pizza. 
Attempting to pass the time with Stand By Me, I ended up having an unfulfill-able craving for a great slice of pizza, my cats (none of which are around to cuddle anymore), and most of all to sit with my family and enjoy the comfort of the home and company in which we shared.

My dad has always been very adamant about turning off the television and sitting down to dinner together. Before cell phones, if we were at the table and the phone rang, he refused to answer it. Dinnertime is a chance to focus on each other and talk without interruption.

Throughout my life my family evolved, and I sat in that kitchen with many different combinations of people and many different combinations of furniture. When my Little Sister was a baby i can recall a changing table in one corner and for years we had a piano that nobody played and it held my stepmothers purse and the Christmas cards people sent us. Throughout our time spent there we had numerous kitchen tables, we changed the counter tops, the floors, the wall colors, and more, but the one thing that stayed the same was the lamp above the table.

As far as I know my Step Mom hated the lamp, it was stained glass and very similar to something you would see in a pub hanging above a pool table. It had a dimmer switch which in my opinion was always set too low. This light set the tone for thousands of meals. Dinner is where the majority of our family bonding would take place. We did not take many vacations with just the four of us, in fact I'm not sure if we took any. We rarely even went on outings as a foursome. But, what we did do together was sit across from each other at the table to eat dinner almost every night, and often it was followed by a movie.

Pretty typical scene from the dinner table.
Reflection of  the lamp in background. 
Sometimes the whole of the dinner conversation would be focused around what movie to watch. Other times we would sit for hours and have lively discussions. My Step Mom would often get frustrated saying, "Why do you three always have to argue?!" In which our immediate reply would be to argue, "Were not arguing! Its just a discussion!" Around the dinner table my Little Sister and I seemed to get along better than away from it, laughing about things mostly forgotten ("Remember when she forgot to pick us up from camp in that bad neighborhood?"). On rare occasion we would get to hear unimaginable stories about the town our Step Mother grew up in. On rarer occasions we would get to listen to our Dad tell stories about his childhood in the town we love so much. (See beach blog)

Since we had moved away from that home last June I hadn't let myself think much about it. But, being so far away, I am slowly understanding the concept of homesickness. I am beginning to define it as, yearning for the small things that bring comfort to ones heart. Being far away from good peanut butter, my moms chocolate chip cookies that are the perfect amount of salty sweet, and failing multiple times at trying to make my family's baked mac and cheese recipe taste just right, makes me appreciate what the term comfort food really means.

For the past few days I have been dreaming about a slice of pizza. But not just any pizza. I want pizza with my family. I want hours of conversation with the promise of enjoying a movie together afterward. I want to hangout with my Dad and my Step Mom and my Little Sister. My Dad and I have been emailing back and forth almost every day and we have video chatted once or twice but we don't have the kind of relationship where we sit and I tell him every detail of my day like I do with my (oh so patient) Mother. My Little Sister and I occasionally send Facebook messages to each other and if I text my Step Mother I'll usually get a response a few days later.
A few years ago at our family's Christmas Eve Party
we won fanciest dressed guests. 

This chunk of my family is harder to stay in touch with via the internet. That is because we have the kind of relationship where we like to sit down and enjoy a good meal together (don't even get me started on my Step Mom's cooking). Right before I wrote this post I was video-chatting with them and they said goodbye so they could sit down together and eat their pizza. No TV, no phones, just slightly dimmed lighting, and comfortable conversation. That was the moment I realized I was homesick.

I have been away for periods of time before and while I may not have any comfort food (except the TastyKakes my Grandmother mailed me) I do know that the comforts of home and good conversation are waiting for me when I get back, and while it might not be the same table, kitchen, lamp, house, or even pizza place, the company is the same and we will have a lot to talk about.

1 comment:

  1. Abby, you brought tears to my eyes and a smile to my face. Such great memories!

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