These are the nights where every book, a food memoir, a reformed theologist’s view of God’s sovereignty, the Bible--three marked translations, a classic on personal development, and a biography of Benedict Arnold are equally tempting. So I play a game wit h myself and sit down to the food memoir when I am too tired to eat.

My face tightens as I can not help subcosciously mulling over the letters to write, the test to study for, that I need to visit the gym, write a resume, cook dinner for next week, call home, write a story, go to work for the fifty-fifth hour this week, strategize my next career move, worry that I am not faithful over my finances, MBA? MFA? Seminary? all three?, that my kitchen is a mess, I have no vacuum cleaner bags, my desk is a disaster, Christmas shopping!, I don’t want to move again, Christmas parties!, and something here about Mastering the French Art of Cooking--o, yes, I am reading a food memoir and my brow is taut.

Ninety minutes before closing time the customer walked in, looked at me helping another customer, and grumped around the office. This was the customer who would not look me in the eye, or listen to me, or leave, or take the rental, and we eventually argued until it took everything out of me. Then there were other customers, the regulars with the regular complaints and Chris stuck in traffic, and one red-eyed customer who could not locate her driver’s license. And then it was over.

I wanted a hug, I wanted to cry, I wanted to go home, I had things to accomplish, and they were all in different directions. On this drive I nearly T-boned a car that zoomed in front of me, but stopped in time for the car behind me to crack my tow hitch receptor. Again I wanted a hug, I wanted to cry, I wanted to home, I had things to accomplish, and they were still in opposite directions of each other.

The picture of my dad and I has sat on my dresser almost since the day it was taken; and it has always been a sad favorite of mine. My countenance, just my eyes, makes this picture memorable.

I owned two dresses at the time that were almost identical. One was borwn; one was greeen. In my Kindergarten class picture I appear in the brown one, but at home I appear in the green one with the white colar and red trim. Beside me, my dad is dressed in an old University of Nebraska shirt he got on a business trip. These two facts, that I had re-dressed and my dad was in house clothes, indicate the rare spontaneity of the moment. Parental enthusiasm must have bubbled forth at the sight of their proud kindergarten princess drawing a camera from the dark recess of a desk drawer.

My bangs were long, hovering over my expressive eyebrows, and I must have spent much time blowing them out of my eyes all week. From the length of my hair, I know that I had convinced my dad that summer of the feminine virtues of long hair. (Today he is disappointed that I have shortened it to my shoulder blades.) Behind us is the old green boat.

The old green boat! We would take that boat fishing in the San Francisco Bay. Not a paitent fishmerman, I would curn up in the space by the passenger’s feet to dog-nap. Usually I would wake a couple hours later to find we had pulled into the harbor. Occaisionally Dad would already have trailered the boat. Considering the hours I spent sleeping on fishing trips it is a small miracle that I remember fishing in the bay at all. When we bought our new boat, Laureen, I lost my cubby hole and had to spend more time watching the poles dip and rise, dip and rise, dip and rise until I could yell, “Fish on the line.”

But the picture. I was not thinking about boats or fishing when Dad and I posed for the picture. I was focused on mydad who was tickling me. Mom was frustrated because she had a difficult, almost impossible, time of focusing the camera. Dad and I were no help. As soon as I had settled down with a big pearly grin tucked by my dad’s elbow he would lean over and tickle me, or pretend to, which was worse. We are only a family of three, but we acted like a family of six who could never coordinate for a family picture. Finally, Mom took the picture; but after ten minutes of this I was not a trusting daughter, so she caught a genuine smile, but I am glancing out of the corner of my eyes for Dad’s next move. His grin that usually filled the crinkles of his eyes, extends to his mouth, pleased with the joke.

You can not see, since my mom is on the other side of the camera, but we are a happy family for once. I wish the moment endured. I wish I had been too young, or less introspective, or in some way unaware how precious the snap shot had been. Dinner that night probably rang with laughter and I would delight in being five-years-old, but the next would be somber and I would grow a little older. When I was older I carried this picture across the country with me, tacking it firmly to the wall or tucking it carefully from view, with the ebb and flow of my frustration. If we could have fun like that one day, why could we not have had fun like that most days?

When you tell me how your family lived off a sack of beans and home-grown vegetables I think, "Ugh, I don't like vegetables." You might have noticed. There is something romantic, from a writer's perspective, about the family of four eating together what their toil and God provided, not in that order, not in a minister’s house. You all, Mom, Dad, Sis, and Brother eat your share gratefully and heartily because you have worked all day. It is a satisfying scene, like mashed potatoes. At the same time, from the culinary perspective, twenty years of this food fare is dull. One dish of a home-grown vegetable, however, discounts my reaction--there is nothing dull about freshness.