“She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called petites madeleines which look as though they had been molded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim’s shells,” (Proust). At the first glance, all I could think about was the movie called Madeline, she lived with a bunch of girls and when she cut her hair so did all the other girls. Then after a second glance I thought about a tiny tea cake, one of which when I was younger would take a fork and dunk into a tall glass of milk. Whether this cake was a piece of chocolate cake or crumb cake, I would always wind up dripping milk on the couch. That also makes me think about hump day (hump day is the middle day on a hitch where the Oreos can finally be opened). I would walk myself over to the trailer, grab the milk out of the fridge and then dunking my Oreos until it. It was a mid-hitch treat, one that everyone always looked forward to, or at least I did that’s the only way I knew the hitch was halfway over.
With that being said, I served a three-month term with the AmeriCorps where they sent me and my crew mates to Coronado National Forest in Safford, Arizona for five weeks. Twenty days out of those five weeks we spent on top of a mountain completely isolated from civilization, and if that doesn’t mess with your head I don’t know what will. Towards the end of the week, last night of the hitch, nobody wants to cook dinner and we were running low on food. With a crew of nine and one crew lead, it was unusual for a Texas crew to run out of food since we usually were on smaller crews. The wind picking up, the grayish white clouds coming in and the sun setting that’s how we knew it was time to start cooking dinner. July 2nd, 2019 the last official night of being on the mountain mean that it was Jules and Lauren’s night to cook, and they definitely didn’t come to disappoint. They conjured up everything we had left so nothing would go to waste. Tempo, canned tomatoes, lettuce, onions, wraps, cheese, sour cream and all the left-over veggies that they could find.
I changed out of my maroon colored ACE shirt, work books and dark blue jeans, walked over to the white trucks and grabbed my black Alpha Theta Beta sweatshirt that was sitting on the front seat. I made my way over to the picnic table where we would have dinner every night, filled my water bottle up at the water pump and took a seat at the table. I sat on the tree stump at the end with Alex to my left, Matt to my right and then our crew lead Stefan was sitting next to Matt doing paperwork, his favorite thing to do. Michael behind me making comments back and forth with Matt and there “loving relationship” as we waited for dinner. I looked around in that moment, and I saw everyone… a change for once.
Jules and Lauren called for dinner. I got up and walked over to the old-fashioned grill where all the condiments, plates and forks were sitting. Grabbing a purple plate, Alex handed me a fork and I grabbed a wrap. The campsite filled with the aroma of tempo as the seasonings of yellow pepper, garlic salt and cayenne pepper sizzled in the pan while they stirred it one last time before turning off the stove. I grabbed a piece of tempo drowned in seasonings and put it into my warm smooth white wrap that they had heated up, taking a big whiff of it I could feel my entire body becoming happy. Then Michael said his favorite one liner that he would say every night, “Umm, who made this shit! This shit is good!” I grabbed the small container of sour cream gave it a nice thick stir and then slapped some on top of the seasoned tempo tossing on top a small pinch of cheese.
The dark green colored lettuce pretty water-logged like usual because mid-hitch we didn’t’ remember to drain the melted ice out of the fridge. They cut the baby carrots up, mixing it with fresh white mushrooms, green and red peppers and onions as it continued to sizzle in a pot on the stove even when they turned it off. That smell, smelt like heaven on earth. The overwhelming, but amazing aroma of spices and canola oil filled the campsite for the rest of the night. The sour cream with the classic, is that mold on the lid and the canned brightly colored red tomatoes thrown into another bowl sat on the grill.
Silence for five minutes, because that’s how long it took everyone to completely clear their plates after a long day. The first bit into my wrap, the savoring taste of three things since I was the absolute worst eater on the crew. The seasoned tempo hitting the spot after a long day. Midway through my wrap I looked up, for the first time ever since I had joined the crew everyone was sitting at the table, at the same time, eating together. For the first time, I truly appreciated the true value of not just cooking and cleaning as a family, but having that feeling, that sense of family at all especially since I was across the country.
Before joining the crew, I had never eaten tempo and I wouldn’t just eat veggies, I hated them ever since I was younger, but during my term that’s all I was given and so I had to eat it or starve. Looking back, if I didn’t eat tempo that night I would’ve experienced that moment and I certainly wouldn’t have that memory to hold on it. At the end of the day all of the hard hours were worth it for that one moment of realizing six weeks after that would I finally have something so hard to say goodbye to. Probably the most generic thing for someone to say, but an experience like that in life and a moment like that 10,000 above sea level on top of a mountain isn’t a moment that many people get in life. Looking back now, being home for three weeks feels like a lifetime because those people changed my life, and the most impactful moment centered around a family dinner. I might’ve cried during that moment because of how amazing it was, but I didn’t because I didn’t have to say goodbye yet, but when I exited the program I shed a tear, a single tear. That single tear represents that meal, that sense of family, that feeling of home and I am truly beyond grateful for that.
That meal expressed who I am, as a person and as a crew member. It represented a job I was given, and experience which resulted from putting myself out there and traveling across the country a week after accepting the job. That meal represents that we as a crew had access to fresh water, spices, veggies, tempo and dairy products. You have dairy products from the farm, veggies from local markets, spices from the store and water from the Colorado river. This type of meal, was an act of inclusion bringing together these different types of food for just one meal, for just one moment. If I was to eat tempo again I hope to relive that moment in my mind, reminding me that I might’ve come home, and might have finished my term, but all of the memories created during it aren’t going anywhere.
General