For the past two Memorial Day weekends, I’ve found myself in a melancholy mood, tinged with homesickness. Last year, I flew home for my dad’s 70th birthday party then found myself leaving before the party ended so that I could make it back to New Haven in time to preach on Sunday. I wrote my sermon on Saturday morning, after checking to see what my stepmom needed help with. Sunday morning came & went and my sermon about The Magnificat, Mary’s song of praise to the Lord in Luke, seemed to land just fine.
Then, it was just me. Don’t folks have cookouts anymore? I wondered. A quick check-in with some of my church aunties yielded no such delights. Here in Connecticut, the pools don’t open until mid-June, which I find rather ridiculous & there are hardly any outdoor public pools, unlike my hometown, DC. To try to quell my homesickness, I downloaded the apps for two hometown R&B stations, 96.3 WHUR & MAGIC 102.3. It definitely helped as I moved about my apartment, cleaning & dancing, dancing & cleaning.
I drank two overpriced margaritas while sitting in the sun, went for a walk, then stopped by my favorite Chinese carryout joint that reminds me of the carryouts back home. They fry their wings kinda like home & half the giant thing of ice tea that always hits the spot. That plus the mambo sauce I have at home tends to do the trick.
I felt the same sort of melancholy creeping up on me this year. I preached this Sunday as well, though I was not hustling back from states away. I went to the Chinese joint & ordered my wings & tea, only to discover that they done changed up the wings! Now, they’re the much smaller, much less satisfying “party wings” that you don’t even have the delight of pulling apart. Alas!
Perhaps one of the tender things about life is realizing that things really have changed. How do you sit with that? How do you reckon with it? Is a reckoning meant to be had? Or do you just accept it? What does it mean to accept that things really have changed & will likely never be the same?
Though it’s much harder for millennials to become homeowners, I dream of owning a home in D.C. & throwing cookouts whenever I please. Auntie will be on the grill. There will be glizzies & burgers & crabs & baked beans & potato salad & fried fish & spades & arguing & Seagram’s coolers poured out for Grandma & ginger ale (Canada Dry) & strawberry shortcake & banana pudding & to-go plates. There will be music & dancing & sweating & laughing & even crying, if you need to. There will be somebody’s baby sleeping soundly in a bedroom amidst all the noise & someone falling asleep on the couch & someone else saying, “Alright now!” because that just seems right.
In my longing for what was, I also long for what’s yet to be.
Auntie will be on the grill.