Monday, September 19, 2011

She

Her steady hands work steadily, mixing the dough, making a ball, preparing to roll it out.  The simple dumpling dough made with little more than flour and water is being transformed into to separate bites of pure delight.  She pushes the rolling pin this way, that way as I memorize her finger nails, skin, her movements.  The rows of dumplings are cut in almost-straight rows and columns like an imaginary skyscraper filled with windows.  My sister and I eat the crooked pieces until we get scolded.  Sometimes we sneak and eat more.  In the dumplings go, boiling with the magnificent smelling broth.  She stirs with the same metal spatula/spoon every time.  And every time it is delicious.  The scene is a reapeat, somes she is my mother and sometimes it is my grandmother, and one day it will be me, my little daughter watching with the same anticipation my sister and I felt, the same anticipation that my dad felt as a little boy.