Why does no one remember my pancakes?

Retiring the uniform of mom and honouring the French lingerie directive

This apron hangs heavy around my neck.

It’s a thick linen artisan piece. Oatmeal and gray with a giant pocket that holds elastic bands, a Sharpie and a lighter. My phone tucks in there too, as does a thin french tea towel that I can’t let my family use. It’s too soft. Too expensive. The latest nice thing I’m hiding from them.

The apron drapes down to mid shin. The bottom half is split into two pieces, meant to wrap around each leg when you sit at your potters wheel. There are snaps down the front to go full kitchen style. She is sturdy and meant to last a lifetime.

It feels as though it’s time to hang up this uniform of mom.

[Ok you got me. The actual apron I will never let go. The very, very French woman who sold it to me insisted that I wear it with a little bit of lingerie while pottering around in the garden. I hold fast to that vision.]

It’s the mom title that needs retiring. I’ve been softly focused on shedding it since my kid died 2.5 years ago. I exhaled a little that day. Our other daughter is now firmly in her twenties. She’s got her shit together. I did my duty. I poured all I had into their brains and onto their plates. I even enjoyed it. Now though, there’s so much less for me to do as mom. My purpose is ready for that empty-nest reconfigure thing.

Daydreaming what the next phase look like can be pretty exciting. I mean, blank slate, right? I practice more often with, “I’m a photographer, I’m a writer, I’m a creative sort.” I nuzzle up to design-adjacent content and we sip tea together. It seems like a gentle glide into what retirement looks like. Slower. Puttering. No sudden epiphanies here.

I am, however, here to talk about the Griefs.

Last week I asked my daughter what her favourite home made meal is. What is your comfort food? Actually, she asked me (pasta bolognese) then I threw it back at her.

After thoughtful consideration, “breakfast potatoes.” She was clear and confident.

I’m so glad she was honest but hear this: I personally do not make ‘breakfast potatoes’. Her father does. My husband slices GMO bulk baby potatoes in half, drowns them in oil before the pan is even hot, adds dried sticks of rosemary that are a relic of my first marriage and the spice rack I got as a wedding present. He pushes them around an enormously deep frying pan with a plastic spatula until the smoke alarm goes off. I don’t believe foods are often over-salted but yes, these are. These greasy beasts are then drowned in a bright red ketchup product. The leftovers, because there are always leftovers, are tucked away in the fridge still hot, uncovered, to be nuked the next day.

It’s not food. It’s a travesty.

The Griefs they keepacomin’.

I swear to you, I have said it once and I will say it again, I made food that was beyond restaurant quality for 15 years. Crisp schnitzel, al dente veg with flaky salt timed perfectly with the three cheese bubbling scalloped potatoes. Salads layered with only the ingredients these fuckers liked. Always a homemade dressing. I made dutch babies with cool berries and freshly whipped cream with real vanilla. And crepes as per my childhood.

If I asked my family today what a dutch baby is they would shrug.

’Dunno.’

One random day many moons ago, my husband started making pancakes from a mix (yes, Costco strikes again). The children they sat at the kitchen island shovelling and slurping and chatting with glee while I slunk back into the other room and sadly realized something.

It’s not what you make but how you make them feel. Duh, right?

I got the memo way too late. I prioritized the food, the actual physical organic nourishing, hoping to instill in them something akin to a palate.

I launched at their open mouths great food with a rousing narrative: ‘Look at this glorious feast I am bestowing upon you! Let’s say some sort of syrupy grace and talk about the three farms I visited to get this meat and produce.’

What I thought was enthusiasm was taken and transformed into a shame for not appreciating it enough.

I’m told I come across with a ‘tone’. Condescending, apparently. I think I got the wrong audience.

Both things can be true.

You may not believe me but, I’m not bitter.

These were the cards I was dealt and I chose how to play my hand. What I thought we’d have is not what came. I’m just grieving it.

As I shed the role I gave my own damn self - nourisher, nurturer - I am compelled to invite into the space a new sort of woman. I can see her across the room. She looks relaxed. Feet up. Chin up.

I’ve tried asking her what she’s all about but she hasn’t said yet.

I can only suppose she’s taking a break between scenes.