Querencia

Just above the banks of the St. Joe River, cottonwood trees shade the deep, pooling water. In the morning, the slant rays of sunlight burn through the mist rising over the river and evaporate the dew, heavy on the meadow grass. Just above the meadow at the base of the hill, tall, narrow tamaracks lean into one another. During strong gusts of wind they converse, cracking and bowing but never breaking. Cedars stand steadfast, dripping with lacy fringe.

Tucked into the middle of the hillside is my grandfather’s cabin—a trailer with the front shorn off and a plywood living room added. Its patchwork carpet has long been torn up and replaced by a green rug. For me, the cabin holds many fascinations, but my favorite resides in the corner just next to the sink. It is the secret treasure of this makeshift lodge: a wood-burning cook stove.

Grandpa used to rise at 4 or 5 or 6 in the morning, depending on when his arthritis would no longer allow for sleep, and start the stove to get the top heated just enough to sizzle a drop of water. Then he’d make the coffee—nothing French-roasted or latte-ed or mocha-ed. Simple Folgers from a can so that by the time we’d get to the cabin in the morning, breakfast smells and warmth greeted my mom, dad, brother and me.

As soon as we arrived, he would stomp his foot on the ground and the entire cabin would shake. “Vell, guuud mornin'!” he would say in an exaggerated Norwegian accent, mimicking the voices of his friends from logging camps. He'd dance a little jig to the stove and start the bacon popping on the large iron skillet, and when the strips curled to a golden brown, he would set them aside on a plate to keep warm by the stove. Then he’d carefully scoop up the grease into an emptied tin can that formerly had held beans or corn, and in a large, aluminum bowl would combine pancake flour with lots and lots of buttermilk until the mixture was very thin. Rosemary Clooney or Dean Martin would croon on the tape player as he carefully poured the batter onto the iron skillet. Between each round of pancakes, he regreased the skillet with a generous lump of bacon fat.

Some people love fluffy, doughy pancakes that rise a half-inch thick. I pity these people. They have never had Grandpa’s pancakes. His were thin and golden, crispy at the edges, tangy with buttermilk and rich with bacon grease. These he would pile onto a plate and place on the table, which my brother and I had set with a mismatch of thin, porcelain plates gathered over the years. Antique collectors would probably scramble to outbid each other for these plates on Ebay now, but for us they were right at home next to the Styrofoam cups of milk.

“Eat ‘em while they’re hot,” Grandpa would encourage. We all had a different way of eating them. Mom and Dad preferred a fried egg, over easy, on top of two or three layers of thin pancakes. With a fork, they would shred the yoke, letting the yellow goo soak into the golden crispiness. My brother would reach for the Aunt Jemima bottle, which never ran out but was always refilled, and poured so much syrup on his plate that my dad would lower his bushy, owl-like eyebrows in a half-scowl. My favorite way to eat them was to lather on soft butter and then take a silver serving spoon from the honey jar, lifting it high and winding it around and around so that light would pour through the thick, amber sweetness. Then I would let the honey drizzle from the spoon, making golden patterns on the pancakes: swirls, smiling faces, my name in cursive.

We would eat until our bellies were full, and only then would Grandpa sit down to enjoy his coffee and pancakes. My brother and I would clear our dishes and then scamper down the hill to fish off the dock or take the rowboat into the water. We wouldn’t be hungry again for hours and hours.

Sometimes you can feel love, sometimes you can hear it, and sometimes you can even see it. But on these mornings, I could smell and taste love.

Reflection on the writing process:
This was the first time I free-wrote on the computer during a class time, so that introduced some new elements to me. I was more likely to go back and revise than I am during my pen-and-paper writing, and I was also able to write more quickly since I can type faster than I can physically write. I found myself getting onto this one topic and wanting to keep going with it. I enjoyed this process.