May's Fixings
submitted by Earcie Allen, Minneapolis, MN, USA, June 2007
My family travels on its stomach when it goes south. When I was a
child I used to think that going south was a punishment. Everybody
made you eat. They invited you over for lunch or dinner, laid out
their finery and brought out dish after dish that they made you eat.
They made me dress up. I hated it. I grew up and got used to being in clothes and to making my younger brothers and sisters eat the stuff I didn't like. Stuff like egg
pie, bread pudding, sweet potato pie and anything with bananas in
it. They loved that stuff. Ugggh!
Year after year we would go south. When we all went, there were
eight of us. My mother and her seven kids. My father never came
with us. He stayed at home in St. Louis, kicked his heals up and had a
good time without all of us crowding him.
Years passed. As the older brother I became the chauffeur for the
family. We kids grew up and went to schools all over the country.
Every few years, everyone who could, would come home and we would
drive to Mississippi. In 19- we headed south. We visited all of
the people we knew in Tupelo and headed for Aberdeen, to visit Cousin
Lillybelle. She heard we were coming and notified the family
there. When we got to her house, Cousin May was there cooking for us. We
hugged and squeezed and kissed everybody then sat down for lunch.
Just before that I wandered around with my camera. In the room, next to the
kitchen, I found "May's Fixings." A photography representative told me later that I was in love with the circles in the photograph. He could see the photograph from that perspective.
I never think about those kinds of things. I loved the way the light
made the scene look beautiful. Later on, I asked May what she was fixing. "Mexican tea cakes. I make them all the time. We've always got some."
We sat around and talked, laughed and giggled and digested the
meal, got up and kissed everybody goodbye and drove off. I always
enjoyed going to the south once I grew up. I discovered that I was in love
with the people. They enjoyed hugging me and slapping my back,
Mattie's little boy. I measured how much I enjoyed the trip by
grading the pain in my back. When it really hurt, I knew I had a
great time. I always took something back with me. This time I took "May's
Fixings." The trip was worth it for that reason alone. And my back
really hurt.
