School Lunches

A creative and vibrant pal of mine recently slipped me Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird. It has rekindled my fiery love for writing. Sadly, writing and I have been in the throes of a cold, and distant stand-off for quite a few years. Needless to say my renewed infatuation has me somewhat starry-eyed and sparkling. One of my habitual problems with writing is the sheer possibility of it. I am overwhelmed by a blank page, and the infinite choices/opportunities it presents. It paralyzes me. My ideas inflate too quickly to successfully capture them on paper- they are cancerous in nature. They grow exponentially, and unmitigated, at too alarming a rate to have proper grounding or foundation. Which is why I halt, stupefied, and slightly offended by my pen and pad. However, upon a recent sitting with Ms. Lamott, I was reminded of the importance of short assignments. Taking smaller bites, one step at a time, "bird by bird". She suggests the subject of one's childhood school lunches to get your creative juices flowing. So I began with this nostalgia sweetened assignment. So it goes....

By the time I had dipped a toe into high school I had given up on school lunches- in a conventional sense anyhow. School lunches had provided me with about the same amount of psychological stability as anything else in my up to that point- which was slim to none. At the risk of being a badly broken record, it was the inconsistency that turned me cold. Mom was typically too frantic and busy to agonize too much over ziplock baggies and lays potato chips (a definite staple when she WAS able to pack an actual brown bag lunch for me- but they were almost always completely/semi-smashed). I felt that when she did pack my lunch it tended to be depressingly generic and hurried. Teachers looked at me somewhat pityingly; the lunch looked lazy. But what they didn't see was my mother- a woman who never stopped moving/working/providing/rushing/nurturing/loving. She often attempted far too many things at one time.  School lunches were low on the totem pole.  Similar to laundry duty, my mother expected me to pack my own lunch. It was around those emotionally-laden, foggy years that followed my parents divorce. A time when our entire domestic structure was redefined and redistricted. A time when my mother had to learn to make ends meet for three children. But I'm dancing around the main point; my mom's lunches consisted of a mushy peanut butter and jelly sandwich (my jelly always soaked the bread, giving it an unsavory blood-clotted look), greasy lays potato chips, and baby carrots coated in that weird white fuzziness that usually signaled too much time had been spent rolling around in the vegetable crisper. Needless to say, dipping sauces and beverages were omitted. A majority of my lunch period was spent glaring in resentment at the kids with juice boxes and fruit snacks. Their lunches looked so tidy and perfectly portioned. I glared at each pampered bite taken, as they bashfully read the napkin note that was invariably tucked inside like a parental fortune cookie. Ironically, when I was left to assembling my own brown bag lunch- they looked eerily identical to my mother's. They had that same  hasty haphazard quality I was accustomed to; they were given about as much care and attention as one gives to plunging a toilet.

Oddly enough, when my father packed my lunch it was a different tale entirely. He was always good at things like that- those minor, seemingly insignificant duties that you would assume an alcoholic of his severity would completely overlook. However, he took school lunches seriously. Very seriously. For a brief time in Middle School when I lived primarily with him (extremely brief- 6th grade I believe, and only for a few months), he packed the most quirky , eccentric, and personality-fitting lunches I have ever seen. Always with a sandwich on rye bread (sometimes marble rye- if he was feeling fancy). It was the perfect choice. I loved rye bread- seeds and all! Unlike mom, Dad packed things he knew I would actually eat. I think he respected my stubborn streak; well, I DID get it from him after all.....
A liverwurst spread could always be found between my slices of bread. Ohhhh the liverwurst! That  suspicious, pink spread with a smell so distinct it could wake you from the soundest of slumbers. Other children wrinkled their noses, looking on with morbid curiosity. Also included, was a mini sized tuper-ware container filled to the brim with green olives so salty they dry your eye sockets at the mere sight of them. A can of pepsi to cleanse my palate, and a snack cake of some decadent sort rounded out my menu quite nicely. I loved my fathers lunches. I basked in the waspy disgust of my peers. I savored each pungent bite of rye/liverwurst, sucked every red pimento with a misfit's flamboyance, and opened each can of pepsi with a boisterous CRACK. I felt loved. I felt looked after. I felt cared for. So, thank you daddy- I'll always split my sandwiches with you.