Motherly hands

My mother’s beautifully manicured and talented hands, her fashionable sunglasses, and her phone. 

Making my way through the dimly lit dining hall, I search for the nearest empty seat. One that is hidden enough so that people don’t notice I’m alone. I gravitate towards corners and windows – nooks where I can easily people-watch, or wander to another thoughtful dimension. I sit,  staring at my selection of food – white rice, a mysterious-looking chicken, and fried plantains. 

I unwrap the fork from the plastic wrapper and mentally prepare myself. The fork scrapes the paper plate and scoops up some white rice – I always like to start slow with these meals. I can’t help but be excited, despite the ominous appearance of what I’m about to wolf down. I am so hungry and my stomach is aggressively persistent with continuous grumbles and somersaults. Poor stomach, how easily fooled… 

The jasmine rice hits my tongue and for a second I almost believe it – finally, good rice. That feeling is gone in an instant, as flavors I’d never associate with rice clog my taste buds and I instantly cringe. (This is another reason I try to hide myself – I don’t want to put on a comedy show for anyone.) It tastes like cardboard. No, maybe a little bit like grass, or dirt. Or maybe all of the above. All I know is that it’s not right. Rice shouldn’t taste like any of those things. People always say that dining hall food tastes like nothing. Hell, I wish that were true. 

I inhale, encouraging myself to keep going. Be grateful, Diana. You have food. And it’s really not that bad. Stop being so dramatic. As I repeat this mantra,  I stab my fork into the rock-like chicken. I don’t even think about it, and into my mouth it goes. It feels like I’m chewing a paper towel from how dry it is. I try to ignore the suspiciously pink pieces, because I’m ravenous. I close my eyes and decide that I’m not here anymore. I’m not sitting alone in a dining hall in a huge city. Instead, I’m sitting on the comfortable stools facing my kitchen island back home in San Juan, Puerto Rico. 

—

Mami just got home from work, and today she’s in a good mood. Sometimes she isn’t and if you say one word to her she will launch into a one-hour rant on how she does everything in this house and nobody helps her, which is relatively true. But today isn’t one of those days. Today is perfect. 

While Alexa blasts “Corazón de Acero” by Yiyo Serante, Mami moves back and forth taking out her ingredients. A master at multitasking, she holds her phone in one hand filming the entire cooking process for her 973 Instagram followers, while the other hand somehow prepares everything needed for the dish she’s making. My mother’s hands chop up onions into tiny pieces so we can’t feel them. (She is not a fan of vegetables.) She takes out her prepared sofrito, a mix of olive oil, onions, garlic, herbs, and bell peppers, that soaks up any meat with a rainbow of flavors. 

Sitting at the opposite side of the kitchen island, I always have a perfect view of her. I sit with a book in hand but am always distracted by her conversations with her friends.  With her AirPods in, she’s always talking to a friend. They talk about each other’s days or update one another on juicy gossip. My initial source of entertainment, that poor book of mine, is left forgotten, unsurprisingly, between the smells, the salsa music, and the very captivating conversation she’s having. Mami always cooks on autopilot, not even thinking about what she’s putting in the pan because she just knows. I bet she could even cook blind, letting muscle memory guide her through her dance.

Seen from an outside perspective, this scene perfectly captures who we are: Mami, the loud, energetic, and extroverted woman; and me, the quiet, observant, and introverted woman who still thinks she’s a 15-year-old girl. We are two sides of a coin, but at our cores, the same. So many things bring us together that simultaneously keep us apart. We share the same name, Diana. We share the same aversion to being touched. We’re both stubborn. We both take things personally. We are both easily angered. We both love with all our might. Many of these things keep us from being the best of friends, like Lorelai and Rory from “Gilmore Girls.” But we’ve always existed in the same constellation, as two people that can’t be severed, unlike the umbilical cord that first separated us. Moments like these bring us together. She makes me food, and even though we always cringe at each other’s physical touch, her hands create my favorite dishes, and my stomach overflows with gratitude as I grumble, “te quedó bueno.”

Because there it is – arroz blanco, pollo guisado, y amarillos. My fork cleans the plate with meticulous patience, scooping a bit of rice, juicy chicken, and a tiny fried plantain. The perfect combination of sweet and savory warms my mouth as I close my eyes and take it all in. As I open them, seeing my hands next to hers brings even more warmth to my heart. Her dark brown hands, always carefully manicured and sporting a shock of hot pink nail polish, are next to my own ridiculously pale hands with chipped cherry red nail polish. I see the almost invisible wrinkles on her hands and her birthmark on her wrist. I see my young hands, with slender fingers that resemble my father’s. Our hands brush, but we’re too busy eagerly eating the food she prepared to notice. 

—

I open my eyes once again, this time really open them. I’m shocked at the sight of the nearly empty carton plate once again. The plantains are left untouched. The one bite almost brought me to tears from how undercooked they were. My eyes well up, realizing I’m not in my kitchen back home. My mother’s hands are nowhere next to mine, rather, an empty seat is the only thing in my line of vision. I can’t touch her just because, or make fun of her music taste, or pretend I’m not overhearing her as she talks to her best friends. 

Instead, I can still feel the paste-like rice and bone dry chicken stuffed in my throat. I feel it forcibly making its way down to my now not-so-happy stomach. Anger takes over, because not only am I eating bad dining hall food alone, after eating this I am also going to be constipated for three weeks. But the hunger is louder than the anger, so loud that my stomach could easily be fooled into thinking I’m eating Mami’s food. I stare at my hands, no longer trembling from hunger, and see my mother’s. I see her strength and her resilience. The good thing is that even after such unfortunate moments, my mother is still here. The good thing is that she’s always on her phone. The good thing is that I can just give her a call.