drippedonpaper

I personally find something comforting in a bowl or cup of warm liquid.

We never had a coffee maker growing up, but for as long as I can remember, my father started his day with a hot cup of tea. Dad drinks "regular" tea, nothing exotic. He always adds just a bit of milk, but no sweetener. Dad is frugal to a fault, so he uses every tea bag for two days. I remember many times, cleaning the kitchen, and moving his saucer to wipe under it, but knowing I must never throw away the tea bag. Wasting anything was a sin in my family of origin.

My family was religious, so I remember "coffee time" at church. I always thought the coffee smelled so delicious, but my dad said I couldn't have any, as it would "stunt my growth." When I asked again at 15, he said there was no need to try coffee, as it was too late to stunt my growth (I was already my current height of 5 feet 11 inches.) So, until I was 30, coffee remained a fragrant brew for anyone but me.

Though I did not try coffee as a child, I always found something very comforting and basic about a warm bowl of soup. Soup is rarely a celebratory meal in my life (ie, "For my birthday meal, I want soup!" I've never heard someone say that), but it's a dish that lives inside my memories.

I am the 2nd of 7 siblings. I was homeschooled until high school. As the eldest daughter, one of my chores was usually making lunch. Mom was not a gourmet cook, perhaps partly by necessity, as with 7 kids, food was more about filling bellies than how spices blended into a dish or how exotic the meal was.

Most lunches included sandwiches. There was an eternal sandwich rotation: peanut butter (with jelly, raisins, or honey), cheese sandwiches (cooked or not, occasionally with corned beef), or tuna. On rare occasions, we had egg sandwiches that we dipped in ketchup. This was rare because a weekly supper was omelettes, which I personally hated as mom grated raw potatoes into them. Somehow, that really tasted odd to me. Our omelettes mainly contained vegetables, with the only meat a sprinkle of tiny bacon bits.

I remember one day, around age 13, my mother had a friend over who mentioned how delicious peanut butter sandwiches with dill pickles are. The next time we had peanut butter, I had to try it. I enjoyed the crunch of the pickles, but found it even more delicious to add cottage cheese. I've never craved cottage cheese, dill pickle, and peanut butter sandwiches as an adult though. I think I mainly loved them as a child since they were a new taste in a litany of days which all seemed to blend together in bland repetition.

All year, the sandwich list marched on through our days, but around September, we could start to have soup with our sandwiches. That always sounded good to me. I guess it was the idea of variety, some new sensory input in the days of changing the cloth diapers of my siblings, and trying to match up the seemingly endless pairs of socks. Nine people wear a lot of socks! One of my sisters made up a game we would play as a folded clothes. She would bring a high stool into the room and call it "college." We would hang every sock on it as we found it in the endless baskets of clothes, hanging them on all levels round and round the stool. Each single sock went to "college." When a match was found they would "leave college" to marry their match.

Mother wasn't found of making soup from scratch so soup too had a rotation. Somehow, she had decided the only vegetable soup that was healthy was Vegetarian Vegetable, so our options were Vegetarian Vegetable, Cream of Chicken, Chicken Noodle, Cream of Celery, or Cream of Mushroom. We only bought the kind you had to mix with milk or water (condensed soup), and to save money, all cream soups were mixed with 1/2 can of milk and 1/2 can of water, as milk cost money. With so many kids, we were allowed to use 2 small cans of soup per meal. Occasionally, the soups would come out "uneven," so sometimes we tried some interesting combos. Chicken Noodle actually mixes ok with Cream of Chicken, and, surprisingly, Vegetarian Vegetable is pretty tasty when mixed with Cream of Celery.

The only soup I did not really like as a child was Scandinavian Sweet Soup. It was a tradition for Mom to make it at Christmas, but I still haven't learned to like it. I really love tapioca in pudding, but mixing it with prunes, raisins and fruit and calling it soup has just never appealed to me.

However, there were other happy warm liquids that are part of my Christmas memories. Mom often would make Wassail punch at Christmas too, which was apple cider and orange juice simmered with cloves and cinnamon sticks. The Wassail was a sensory delight, as we could smell the cloves and cinnamon for hours, leading to our anticipation of the warm, somewhat sweet liquid that always tasted to me of celebration and gifts to come.

One of my favorite soup memories as a child was the 15 bean soup my Grandma Dorothy would make for one of the lunches during our Thanksgiving visits. My Grandma Dorothy was such a joyful person, and I swear she somehow stirred happiness into the soup pot. Visits to her home are shining stars in my memories. Everyone seemed happier there, and we ended each day with an evening walk. Even when my grandparents visited us, a daily walk was a sacred ritual. Sometimes I would go with Grandpa. Grandpa was a man of few words, but one day he showed me a family cemetery he found a couple streets behind our house. Even after my grandparents left, I would think of Grandpa every time I passed it, reminding myself that there were probably other surprises near my home if I would just look for them.

Now a big surprise in my life should have seemed predictable. My family has shrunk by one kid who is now at college. In recent days, the main soup I see is frequently is the frozen vegan soup my daughter made before she went to college. Somehow I can't stand to thaw and eat it. Maybe she will want it on Labor Day, if she comes home then. Will she come home then? Her classes finally begin tomorrow, so I guess we will see how they go and what her schedule is.

I see the soup each time I open the freezer, and think of her. I wonder if she's using her new coffee maker or drinking the selection of teas she insisted on packing, even as we were running out of packing room in our car. Is she warm? Does she remember to wear the rain boots we picked out together? Her absence still seems recent, and I keenly feel the transitions for my days and my heart as my children grow.

I walk up the hall to wake my 15 year old. Daisy, our dog, sneaks in, and decides a nice warm face lick is a wonderful way to gain my sleep daughter's attention. "Ugh, Daisy, move. Not on my face." L.B. groans, swatting Daisy away.

"You do need to get up" I remind LB. "But be kind of quiet. Your brother worked 'til 11 last night."

"I know. Ugh." She covers her head, turning away from the dog. "Could you make me coffee? I'm tired."

"Sure, but get up, ok?"

I grab Daisy, and she follows me to the kitchen after I close L.B.'s door.

I always love how coffee smells when I first open the can each morning. I inhale, measure everything, and get it started.

Warm liquids bookend my days, my life, my memories. I get dressed, with echoes of the drips and gasps of the coffee maker weaving in and out of my thoughts of the days schedule. So much to remember. Maybe the coffee will help.

L.B. stumbles down the hall. Good, she's awake and moving.

I pour us coffee, and add ice to hers, the way she prefers it during August. Soon our state will cool with autumn's breezes, but for now I make L.B. iced coffee.

It's a little thing, to grab, to hold, to gulp as we pick up her friends. Sometimes it's even a communal cup of sorts, as H. will beg for just a sip or two, as they are out of coffee at her house 'til grocery day.

Liquids flow, spill, stain, and splash details over our memories and days. August is quickly running out. Soon it will be soup season once more.