Wisdom from Mamas Kitchen
By Ruth Bomar
In my mother’s one-pivot kitchen, she could place her foot in the center and pivot to the stove, sink, fridge or table. Bright orange linoleum covered the floor, something Mama would mop with vigor, stand back approvingly, and then sigh with satisfaction. Every day enticing aromas filled our small home from my mother’s central command: beans, onions, garlic, chile, tortillas. As a child I never had to wonder what to do, my mother’s voice ordered me to action. “Chop the onion in tinier pieces, squeeze more out of these limes, get the dog out of here, and put the guacamole on the table. Stand up straight.”
My girlhood bedroom was the enclosed back porch one step down from the kitchen. Every Saturday I awakened to the murmur of my parents’ voices as they sipped their coffee.
As a young mother, my life had changed fundamentally. The first time I stayed up all night with my baby’s stuffy nose and fever, a sobering realization enveloped me like the aroma of sizzling onions from Mama’s skillet. “I am this child’s mother. I’m in charge. I’m responsible. His outcome good or bad is in my hands.”
Every aspect of my existence had taken on new meaning and significance. My life as a single woman then later, as a young married woman, now, seemed petty and frivolous. As a mother my actions and decisions now carried consequences reaching into the future. My husband became distant as career challenges and financial burdens increased. Never ending housework stressed our daily life.
I was twenty six years old and was soon to birth my second child. My mother had four children. She walked the path I walk now. When I became a mother she turned into much more relevant and reasonable person in my eyes. She seemed to me a perpetual fountain of knowledge and wisdom. From where I sat, she just knew how to do life.
I sat squeezed between the shiny chrome table and the clean white wall. My mother’s kitchen warmed up the rest of the house both in winter and summer. Life was simple here. Wash, chop, cook, and serve. Mama’s kitchen made sense. Mama was in charge. I just had to follow orders. In her kitchen I was fed, safe and warm.
I was nine-months pregnant with my second child. My 19-month-old son toddled under foot. I didn’t want to face the new life in my belly, this new child I was going to have to raise. Overwhelmed with the responsibility my first born, I just wanted to run away.
“How” I queried as Mama bustled from the sink to the stove to stir some savory concoction. “How will I do it? What ever will I do with another child?” I whined.
Mama paused momentarily, glanced at the ceiling with a look that said, “How, oh, Lord, could something so basic elude my normally intelligent daughter?”
Without skipping a beat in her cooking gusto she turned back to the sink, submerged her hands in hot water, and shook them dry as she reached for the oven door. She spoke in that clear, firm voice I knew so well, “ Lo mismo que hiciste con el primero. Lo amas. Same thing you did with the first one. You love him!”
Of course!
