お母さん

My hands smelled of onions the other day. I sliced and minced the savory bulb for hamburger patties. Despite any attempts to remove it (lemon, sugar scrubs, fragranced soaps), the odor remains impressed within my skin for days at length, and I have come to accept it as the sensory battle scars of a budding cook.

As much as I love onions--the tender, slightly sweet flesh of a sliver charred in the frying pan; the rustic warmth of French onion soup; the sharp crunch in fresh lomi lomi salmon--I hate cutting them. (A classic romance.) From the moment my fingers pick up the knife, I know that I will be reeking of unpleasantries for far longer than I like.

Onion on my palms indicates the absence of my mom, who does as all good mothers do, and chops the onion for her daughter, taking up the uglier, harsher, more painful, and sometimes smellier burdens in life.

Living on my own feels strange, but not impossible. I know that feeling is due to Mom's insistence that I wash the dishes or scrub the basins or cook the rice, even though I never wanted to. As much as I asserted that I needed independence, I miss my mom, and I often wish that I were still the fawning girl in her kitchen rather than the fumbling young woman in mine.

Thank you for everything Mom. I appreciate you more than I say, even though it takes my moving an ocean apart to say so!

Happy Birthday!