How and Why I Make Mashed Potatoes
The digital picture frame flies at me and smashes on the floor. One of many volleys in my direction. My only weapon is words, but when I am hurt they are lethal and vicious. She holds nothing back. Rage overwhelms us both and we call a ceasefire into separate rooms.
Brooding over the back and fourths, both desperate to say something that will force the other to concede.
Futile to even imagine.
I brought the stress of work home, I overshared, and my superwoman of a wife finally broke. She’s doing so much everyday. Her business is picking up, our son is 10 months old, our nanny quit, and it’s tax season and she needs to compile all the documents.
I have books to write about each student. Every administrator has a new form to fill out and a deadline for us to meet. We have individual parent teacher meetings coming up and end of school performances.
The weight of the world buckles us.
I carry my emotions on my shoulders. My wife hoards hers until they overflow into unimaginable torrents.
We are a potent combination.
Luckily, the deep love we have for each other transcends all of it. The fights come and go. All marriages have them.
The fight started Friday night. We woke up Saturday and you could cut the tension with a knife. It took one bad statement on my part for the aftershock to turn into another full fledged earthquake.
Back and forth we went until 5pm. We had lunch arrangements at grandmas but we never made it. Neither of us ate anything all day.
I go into the kitchen and start preparing the “white flag.”
Delicious demarcation
Last year, during one of our heated fights, at 2am, my wife said,
“I am hungry.”
Angry and upset, I wanted to say any number of ugly things, but they accomplish nothing. Only more hurt.
Pissed off, I get up and go into the kitchen. We don’t have any groceries. We planned to grocery shop that day.
We have two potatoes.
I peel them, chop them into large dice, and place them in a pot with cool water that is salty like the sea.
I bring them to a simmer and allow them to simmer until a fork can break them apart with little resistance.
I drain the water and return the pot to the stove. I stir the potatoes over the open heat for 30 seconds to release as much steam as possible.
I add small cubes of diced butter into the pot with the potatoes and begin mashing. Once the potatoes absorb the butter I add milk until I reach my desired consistency.
A few dashes of white pepper and a tiny pinch of nutmeg. Stir one last time careful not to overwork them.
I place them in a bowl and set them at the dinner table and gingerly walk into the bedroom and say,
“come eat”
My wife brings an appetite and a scowl. She sits down at the table and starts to eat. The pain doesn’t end, we are both still hurting from the fight, but the moment becomes a turning point.
Proof that even in our darkest moments, I care and she does too.
Waving the white flag
This Saturday at 5pm, she came into the kitchen as I was preparing our only meal of the day and saw the potatoes in the pot. She asked,
“are you making mashed potatoes?”
I said,
“That’s what we do when we fight, isn’t it?”
We hugged, we cried, we ate.
