FANTA-SEE?
The other day, noonish, when Ed and I were sitting quietly on our couch, he said, “Your lips are moving and your brow is furrowed. Who are you talking to?”
I flushed, I’m sure, embarrassed, and started to say, “Nobody,” but I knew Ed wouldn’t buy it. I’ve told him about my imaginary conversations, when I internally berate and set straight, say, the speed freak who almost drove me off the road or the rude salesclerk or the writer of a nasty Facebook post. So, a little pink-faced, I told him my current, recurrent fantasy.
I’m feeding six guests, national political leaders I admire, at a table on our deck. Jill and Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, and Michelle and Barack Obama are soaking up the soul-filling sound of the rushing river and telling me their shoulders are falling. As the sun goes down on one of those stunning Pacific Northwest skies, they tell me they’re more relaxed than they’ve been in a while.
And the food that’s spread out on the table? Well, they love it. Shrimp ‘n grits and jambalaya and peanut butter pie, and my guests are so, so happy to be someplace where they don’t have to be “on”, and they ooh and aah over it, and wine flows for some of us, and iced tea flows for others, and I know this is the way the world should be, happy mouths and happy hearts and the easy camaraderie of people fond of each other and glad to be right where they are, with not a thing to prove.
Growing up in a household where we ended one meal with a discussion of what we’d be eating at the next one, it’s no wonder my fantasies often involve food. When I was eleven and lived in Tupelo, Mississippi, home of Elvis Presley, I fantasized every night that I cooked and served The King fried chicken and mashed potatoes (Movie magazines had listed those as his favorite foods), and that he fell madly in love with me. I didn’t get far in terms of what that love looked like—I’m not sure Elvis and I ever kissed. I just knew he couldn’t resist me and my mouth-watering food.
Ed smiled through my description of the heavenly dinner on our deck, and when I was finished, he said, “That’s a great fantasy. Full of love. Full of you, Carol Jane.” Then he kissed me, such a sweet kiss, and then it struck me that maybe my silly fantasy was not so silly after all.
I do love to feed dinner guests and our kids and grandkids and neighbors and the folks at the homeless shelter and my book club and my husband. “Feed me, Carol!” is Ed’s response if I ask him what he wants for dinner. I believe it’s hard to feel bad when your mouth feels good, and I want so much to bring some light and some love into this crazy, hurting world. Maybe, imagining love and comraderie keeps me aware that love and comraderie are possible, that they’re real, that there is power in feeding each other’s mouths and hearts and souls with the best we got, and that the best we got can be pretty darn fine. Maybe my fantasy is a form of prayer.
Fantasy. Fanta-see. See what I’m capable of. See how I want to love. See it. And then, take that imaginary something into the kitchen or the church or the office or the blank piece of paper, and cook up something deliciously healing—and real.
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