Four hours after I wrote my last post, Ms. Pelba, my neighbor, came over with a giant pot of what she called, "Good ol' fashion jambalaya."
ME: Oh. Wow. What's in it?
MS. PELBA: Mmmm, honey child! Es got some shrimp, some rice, some tah-mate-oh's...es got everythang!
ME: So it's a soup?
MS. PELBA: No! Es jambalaya! You aint eva had some jambalaya?!
ME: No...
MS. PELBA: Well, you go on and po yo-self a bowl right now sweet thang! And then you save it.
ME: Why?
MS. PELBA: Because. Ur-vree-one know es betta the second day!
Everyone but me, of course. I didnt know what Ms. Pelba meant by "it's better the second day" but after my second bowl, I didnt care. I later learned that jambalaya was a dish that originated in southern Louisiana by the Cajuns around the bayou where food was scarce. Which explained the numerous ingredients in it. But it still didnt explain what exactly made it better the second day.
The next day at school, as I was reading and responding to your comments, I started thinking of possible ways to apologize to my friend Patricia. True, it wasnt very friend-like to ask a friend to do something they didnt want to do, but then again, running away from the situation wasnt exactly friend-like either. That's when my friend Ivan showed up and we started talking.
As I was telling him about Patricia, my friend, his ex-neighbor, Ivan's friend Starr, who so happened to be Patricia's neighbor, came up to us. She was dumbstruck to meet "the friend that ran away" and proceeded to tell me that Patricia was feeling just as awful as I was. And in some weird way, it felt good to know my friend felt bad too. So I asked Starr for her advice the best way to approach the situation.
STARR: Well, what's your love?
ME: My love?
STARR: Yeah. Your love. There are five types of love and everyone has at least one. Touch, like when you reach out and physically touch people. There's a...giving your time, giving gifts...words of affirmation.
ME: Words of affirmation? What's that?
STARR: Affirmation love is like words of encouragement. Like, "I love your shoes," or "That's a really nice green sweater." Like that.
ME: Ok, so touch, time, gifts, affirmation...you said there's five right?
STARR: Yeah. The last one is acts of service. Like if you have a sick neighbor, you go over and offer help.
Or if you have a broken-ankled mother at home. Starr's pearls of wisdom made sense. My neighbor's and mother's friends werent making us dinner, just for the hell of it or because they had to. Making dinner was one of the ways the expressed their love. And here I was, complaining about it.
I started to think about the ways of how I expressed love, when I remembered Patricia's 17th birthday. Patricia had never had cheesecake before and I thought it would be a total travesty to graduate from high school without ever tasting God's greatest gift to earth. So during Ms. Ingman's fourth period American History class, me and a few of Patricia's closet friends, pulled her out of a class with a fake note and celebrated her birthday with a cheesecake right there in the middle of the school mall. The cheesecake was a big hit and it was the perfect gift. It was also the perfect apology.
Wednesday afternoon, I was in my kitchen trying to create the perfect cheesecake. Instead, I created the perfect mess. Put me in a room with mixing bowls, flour and and eggs, and it's like the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. Eventually, I made my first cheesecake, and put it in the oven to bake at a comfortable 425 degrees.
That's when my phone rang. It was Starr. With bad news. Patricia was just dropping off Nicholas Scott Johnson at her mother's house, when she lost her balance and fell down a flight of stairs, fracturing her wrist. It was the end of an era. My friend was dying in a hospital bed, and I had not yet had the chance to apologize for running away. Ok, so maybe it wasnt that the dramatic, but the feelings were the same. Immeadiately I sprung into action, and got ready to go to the hospital. After a shower and trying to find the perfect apologetic outfit, I smelled something burning. The cheesecake! I had forgotten about my perfect apologetic gift, and was left with a kitchen filled with smoke and a weird burnt cheesecake-y smell.
My gift was ruined beyond belief. And I wondered if maybe it's was God's weird way of telling me that maybe my friendship was ruined with Patricia. Was the cheesecake a metaphor for my friendship? Either way, I ignored the signs, because I was determined to make good and grabbed the next best thing. The jambalaya.
When I got to the hospital, Starr began to inform me, that on top of a fractured wrist, Patricia was also suffering from a concussion as well. As soon as I walked into the hospital room, Patricia began to apologize profusely. She realized how horrible she had acted, and asked if we could write off and forget the whole incident. Vows of friendship renewed, we began to eat the jambalaya.
PATRICIA: What is it?
ME: It's jambalaya.
PATRICIA: Really? I've heard bout it.
ME: Yeah, it's really good.
PATRICIA: Yeah...they say it's better the second day.
I didnt know if Patricia was talking about the jambalaya or our friendship, but I knew it was all gonna be ok.
ME: Oh. Wow. What's in it?
MS. PELBA: Mmmm, honey child! Es got some shrimp, some rice, some tah-mate-oh's...es got everythang!
ME: So it's a soup?
MS. PELBA: No! Es jambalaya! You aint eva had some jambalaya?!
ME: No...
MS. PELBA: Well, you go on and po yo-self a bowl right now sweet thang! And then you save it.
ME: Why?
MS. PELBA: Because. Ur-vree-one know es betta the second day!
Everyone but me, of course. I didnt know what Ms. Pelba meant by "it's better the second day" but after my second bowl, I didnt care. I later learned that jambalaya was a dish that originated in southern Louisiana by the Cajuns around the bayou where food was scarce. Which explained the numerous ingredients in it. But it still didnt explain what exactly made it better the second day.
The next day at school, as I was reading and responding to your comments, I started thinking of possible ways to apologize to my friend Patricia. True, it wasnt very friend-like to ask a friend to do something they didnt want to do, but then again, running away from the situation wasnt exactly friend-like either. That's when my friend Ivan showed up and we started talking.
As I was telling him about Patricia, my friend, his ex-neighbor, Ivan's friend Starr, who so happened to be Patricia's neighbor, came up to us. She was dumbstruck to meet "the friend that ran away" and proceeded to tell me that Patricia was feeling just as awful as I was. And in some weird way, it felt good to know my friend felt bad too. So I asked Starr for her advice the best way to approach the situation.
STARR: Well, what's your love?
ME: My love?
STARR: Yeah. Your love. There are five types of love and everyone has at least one. Touch, like when you reach out and physically touch people. There's a...giving your time, giving gifts...words of affirmation.
ME: Words of affirmation? What's that?
STARR: Affirmation love is like words of encouragement. Like, "I love your shoes," or "That's a really nice green sweater." Like that.
ME: Ok, so touch, time, gifts, affirmation...you said there's five right?
STARR: Yeah. The last one is acts of service. Like if you have a sick neighbor, you go over and offer help.
Or if you have a broken-ankled mother at home. Starr's pearls of wisdom made sense. My neighbor's and mother's friends werent making us dinner, just for the hell of it or because they had to. Making dinner was one of the ways the expressed their love. And here I was, complaining about it.
I started to think about the ways of how I expressed love, when I remembered Patricia's 17th birthday. Patricia had never had cheesecake before and I thought it would be a total travesty to graduate from high school without ever tasting God's greatest gift to earth. So during Ms. Ingman's fourth period American History class, me and a few of Patricia's closet friends, pulled her out of a class with a fake note and celebrated her birthday with a cheesecake right there in the middle of the school mall. The cheesecake was a big hit and it was the perfect gift. It was also the perfect apology.
Wednesday afternoon, I was in my kitchen trying to create the perfect cheesecake. Instead, I created the perfect mess. Put me in a room with mixing bowls, flour and and eggs, and it's like the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. Eventually, I made my first cheesecake, and put it in the oven to bake at a comfortable 425 degrees.
That's when my phone rang. It was Starr. With bad news. Patricia was just dropping off Nicholas Scott Johnson at her mother's house, when she lost her balance and fell down a flight of stairs, fracturing her wrist. It was the end of an era. My friend was dying in a hospital bed, and I had not yet had the chance to apologize for running away. Ok, so maybe it wasnt that the dramatic, but the feelings were the same. Immeadiately I sprung into action, and got ready to go to the hospital. After a shower and trying to find the perfect apologetic outfit, I smelled something burning. The cheesecake! I had forgotten about my perfect apologetic gift, and was left with a kitchen filled with smoke and a weird burnt cheesecake-y smell.
My gift was ruined beyond belief. And I wondered if maybe it's was God's weird way of telling me that maybe my friendship was ruined with Patricia. Was the cheesecake a metaphor for my friendship? Either way, I ignored the signs, because I was determined to make good and grabbed the next best thing. The jambalaya.
When I got to the hospital, Starr began to inform me, that on top of a fractured wrist, Patricia was also suffering from a concussion as well. As soon as I walked into the hospital room, Patricia began to apologize profusely. She realized how horrible she had acted, and asked if we could write off and forget the whole incident. Vows of friendship renewed, we began to eat the jambalaya.
PATRICIA: What is it?
ME: It's jambalaya.
PATRICIA: Really? I've heard bout it.
ME: Yeah, it's really good.
PATRICIA: Yeah...they say it's better the second day.
I didnt know if Patricia was talking about the jambalaya or our friendship, but I knew it was all gonna be ok.
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