I've Been Redeemed

. . . by the blood of the Lamb, filled with the Holy Ghost I am, all my sins are washed away, I've been redeemed. In the immortal words of some anonymous sinner. That song is burned into my heart by renditions sung in church, at revivals, on the church van on the way to Vacation Bible School and snow camp and youth retreats and God knows where else.

Yesterday, I stopped on my way home from wine class and bought a bottle of Ripassa Valpolicella, an extravagance that I justified by inwardly bragging about my performance on my final. While at Whole Paycheck Foods, I had a long talk with Darrel (yes, that is how he spelled it, it was on his name tag) the wine guy, a guy with an accent that charmed me no end. You know that I am a woman of the people.

Darrel and I are united in our love of wines Ridgian, particularly the Monte Bello, and as he told me a story about how he and his wife recently opened a bottle for a celebratory meal, his face glowed and his eyes were bright.

Later in the evening, I sat at the edge of the pool and dipped my feet in the water and drank a glass of the Valpolicella. It reminded me of a scene in one of my favorite novels, The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett, a book I have read so many times that if it were a person, it would've have gotten a restraining order. In this scene, Sabine is thinking about Parsifal, her dead husband, and about how he would cut a lime off the tree in the backyard and make a gin and tonic to sip poolside on a warm golden California evening. She is thinking how that good life and Parsifal's miserable childhood in Nebraska could not co-exist, how the good life obliterated Parsifal's early sufferings.

When I went to D.C., K. and I went to lunch at Georgia Brown's for what may be the best meal I have ever had, starting with the biscuits and cornbread, moving on to the fried green tomatoes, and finishing with the shrimp and grits. That meal changed my life. As I was eating, I considered all the crappy food I have eaten over the years, the plain dried-out chicken breasts and the cans of sawdusty water-packed tuna and the dry toast with a scraping of sugar-free jam and my soul rose up in protest and quoth "Nevermore," in the immortal words of the raven. Henceforth, I would eat freely from the bounty of this earth. [UPDATE: I didn't mention the flip side of the dry toast and water-packed tuna, which is eating more than I would want of foods I actually didn't want. The usual consequence of deprivation.] That was a little gift I would give Myself.

Since then, I have been making pesto and trying marinades and grilling peppers and red onions and putting together these festive Greek salads and spending a lot of time thinking about what to make for dinner and so I have been preparing only foods that are pleasures to look at and pleasures to eat. One of my colleagues is a woman who lives in Ohio, and she and I have occasion to correspond by email now and again about little questions about a project we've been working on, and somehow we've gotten into the habit of talking about our dinner menus, and it made me think of something Mr. Mudrick used to say, about how he liked to read cookbooks, and how thinking about food could be such a pleasure.

And then also there is the voodoo magic is mixed up somehow with pleasure. It happens when you love someone else, it happens when you love yourself. Darrel's brightness. How I felt this morning when I was drinking my coffee and skimming the pool. The looks on my daughters' faces this morning when I read stories they wrote and they could see from my reactions as I read how much I genuinely enjoyed their writing--not because I am their mother, not because I am proud (although I am, of course)--but because the writing was so good and fun to read and the experience made my life better. Whatever brings good into the world is good.