I have the Becoming journal and have slowly been working on it. I was just faced with the question about the most memorable meal. Of course over time I’ve had lots of family meals that meant a lot to me, and I can remember getting together with friends and family. Days when we had large groups and days when we had small groups gathered around our table. There were days when we ordered in and days when I worked hard to fix something new I’d never cooked before. I remember fixing a meal for a speaker in physics that was allergic to Gluten – the first time I’d heard of that, and being so careful, having another speaker stay over at our house after speaking about his radio show on the Bermuda Triangle and other mysteries, ordering a live lobster and playing with it when Kevin was little before cooking it in a condo in NJ. There was the day I threw a surprise party for my husband and invited his whole department for his 50th birthday. My grandmother was there and the candles were so hot! We also had days when we ate at my mothers and days when we were invited to friends and of course there were days when we were invited to my in laws to eat. I remember one meal where we got to eat out at IKEA with my in laws and on the same trip there was a meal at a restaurant with that whole side of the family. On my mother’s side there were also lots of meals in Texas eating with family there. There was a meal in a building that was freezing where we all huddled by the window to stay warm and a meal that was served so late that we thought we would never get food (That one was at a place that we didn’t really knew where we were, we ended up lucky to find our way back to my aunt’s for the night). There were so many others too. Each one has a special place in memory.
The one I ended up thinking was special enough to include in Becoming for me though involved my meals in China. Around 2005 I went to China to present at a conference for my boss. The conference was an Environmental Informatics conference and the furthest I had ventured before was to Canada, so China was a new experience for me. I had travelled with my husband, including a sabbatical to New Jersey that included a trip to New York City a few times… and for someone from a rural farm in Illinois that was really venturing out. What I knew about China really came from my experiences with my roommate in college, Shiqi Yuan, who was from Shanghai. I loved Chinese food, the authentic kind that Shiqi made when we traded off cooking but the rest of my knowledge came from the little I’d picked up about why she didn’t want to return to China. She was born in the year of the Horse which Shiqi said was bad luck and would mean that she would most likely not be able to marry when she returned home. (There was also something to do with the one-child policy but over time I’ve forgotten that) While we were in college Tiananmen Square also occurred. Tiananmen Square was a scary event if you were a college student and knew (and cared about) anyone from China, I’m sure in China the news didn’t carry much information about what was occurring, but here we were watching all the news. So years later when I was asked to go to China, the first thing that went through my mind was Tiananmen square and what happened to those students. I’d lost touch with Shiqi… but I knew the government in China is pretty strict… In the end, writing about a memorable meal I ended up with the meals in China.
At the conference in China most of our meals occurred family style at a ‘Chinese Restaurant’. I thought it was a little funny that the location had a sign labeling it the ‘Chinese Restaurant’ as we were in China – isn’t every restaurant there Chinese? The meals were all family style, and since the conference took place on an island right off the cost of Mainland China in Xiaman China, a lot of the focus was seafood. None of the items you would find at a standard Chinese restaurant here in the US. I remember seeing a fish with the eyes still on – that one we all took a picture of! Most of the meals I ended up sitting next to a Malaysian general who seemed to follow me around for most of the conference. My favorite meal though was at the Beijing hotel that was our stopover before heading back to the US. The only part of the meal I really remember though was an appetizer with tomatoes, mozzarella, and a balsamic vinegar. It was SO good! I ate alone and I was in a foreign country – over 14 hours by plane from home. So my thought is for the journal Becoming, that would be the meal I had to include. If you can eat by yourself 14 hours (by plane) from home and feel comfortable in a country that you don’t even speak the language you are one step closer to Becoming. In reality, you should be able to feel comfortable being with people or being alone…. I love being with people that are diverse (I can learn so much!).
My mother later had mentioned that she and my brother thought that I would end up detained in China. Apparently they had discussed it. Things my mom says have a habit of deflating me, every statement no matter if it starts with this is great, or thanks for doing this always ends with but you could have done, or if only you, or this needed more… I try so hard not to do the same thing with my kids, though I’m sure they think I always see the negative in every situation as I weigh the pros and cons of everything. Debating what could go wrong vs. what the benefits are of everything we do.
I went on to lead a state robotics championship for FLL, serve on the board for a museum, and teach at a university… all things that I am proud of having done. Having ventured out of my comfort zone and headed to China was just one of those small steps on the way there.
It’s funny (funny strange) thinking back now on how funny and well liked my dad was. Right now he mostly sits in his chair and watches tv. When people come over he doesn’t really talk much to them, and that includes me. It’s hard to reconcile the person he is today with the person he was.
My mom called to tell me that my Uncle Tom was in the hospital. He will be ok from the sounds of it – though it also sounded like the family grapevine had worked pretty well, but it reminded me of the story of each time he would drop by on patrol as a state trooper in Illinois while we lived in a trailer in my Aunt Margaret’s yard. My dad had taught me (2 or 3 year old me) to run out screaming here comes that dirty cop every time Uncle Tom showed up.
I remember my dad telling a story about getting pulled over and getting something like 40 warning tickets on an old grain truck… Hmmm wonder why. He said the officer was a friend of my uncles and told my dad he would have given him more, but his hand cramped up.
Dad even has stories about talking a police officer in Georgia out of a ticket on their honeymoon. He made friends with the officer and invited him up to Illinois to go fishing. I think mom even said he gave him directions.
I remember my dad playing outside with us, especially during the winter. He did everything from make go-carts with drills for motors, to use the tractor to let us sit in the scoop and make it an amusement ride going up and down and around in circles. As we got older he would make us our own race tracks for larger go carts, and finally we moved on to him giving us old beat up cars to drive around in the fields.
– I also remember the day he told me to go drive around in the disced part of the field with this old cadillac they have aquired… Not the ploughed! After being towed out by a tractor, I’ll never get those two confused again! I think I was only old enough to see over the steering wheel.
Despite dad doing all sorts of pranks – yes he once threw a snake onto my foot and then shot the snake. Gave us flares to light fireworks, and I think I’ve already mentioned the canon contest previously…. My dad was pretty serious when he was worried about us too.
I also remember walking beans and passing out one year (6th grade I think). My dad picked me up, threw me over his shoulder and carried me out of the field. He then drove me to my Aunt Margaret’s where he left me. Then despite my (for some crazy reason, and I think it involved that I was the only girl out there) wanting to walk beans that year, my dad banned me from the field for the year. I was probably the only farmer’s kid around that wasn’t forced to work in the field that year.
Uncle Tom and I
I’m pretty sure hooking a sled up to a lawn mower and pulling it would be frowned on now —- especially with a 2 year old on it, but back then it was what we did without ipads, and TV and electronics. You can even see the tracks where my dad had been pulling me around and around the yard. I recognize Aunt Margaret’s yard from the picture. I keep saying that I’m fairly amazed that myself (and most of my friends) survived childhood on the farm. But I also know that our parents were usually with us. I remember lots of times, trying to convince mom and dad to let me stay home while they drove around to ‘watch corn grow’ and even one where dad kicked my door in and broke the lock because I didn’t want to go. But we survived to adulthood.