Sweetness, Literally

It's funny (but probably a universally shared feeling) how many memories, or how much feeling, or how much significance can be associated with one single piece of furniture.

My parents have a really nice bar. I'm not talking about the booze inside (although that's okay too, I guess), I'm talking about the bar itself. It's made out of some kind of heavy wood with a rich finish. On the right is a cabinet with glass panels, all the better to display the (seemingly, to a 6-year old) infinite varieties of glasses inside.

On the left is a smaller cabinet with a solid wood door, and above it is a drawer. The drawer is full of napkins, glass stirring rods, coasters, and plastic stirring sticks from all sorts of exotic places (Australia, Hong Kong, Hawaii, LA, London, Tokyo...) that my Dad's visited over the years.

When I was younger, though, the most important things stored in that drawer were the peanuts. I don't mean peanuts bought from a store and kept there for the social events and cocktails; I mean peanuts in blue and red foil pouches, some with stripes, some with solid colors, all with a fancy looking logo of some sort.

Yes, I'm talking about the little bags of peanuts handed out on airplanes.

Dad has always travelled a LOT. Not only that, Dad has always disliked peanuts. Thus, whenever he came home from one of his many trips, he'd have a whole handful of those amazing little bags. He'd put them in the drawer of the bar while he was unpacking, and every now and then Mom would let me rummage around and pull out one or two pouches as a treat.

As time went by, I developed certain preferences. Delta peanuts were the "best" (meaning only that the pouches had the coolest design) and Continental peanuts were the "worst" (ugliest pouches ever). More important, though, was the distinction of "salted roasted" vs "honey roasted."

"Salted roasted" peanuts were okay. Peanuts are pretty good no matter what, and the shiny pouches were pretty neat, and they were always a reminded of Dad...but "honey roasted" peanuts were Special. They were a perfect balance of sweet and salt, peanut and honey, all in one perfect little bundle. In some ways, being able to pull open the drawer and poke around inside for any new arrivals helped make it okay that Dad was gone so much. (Not that we had an unhappy family dynamic or anything like that - Dad has always been a wonderful father...but we still missed him, and it was fun to have something, however silly to look forward to.)

Of course, the joy was not to last. Somewhere along the line, airlines had to start watching costs and one of the VERY FIRST casualties was the wonderful snack known as "honey roasted peanuts." I remember being sorely disappointed that by the time I was flying regularly, airlines simply didn't have "honey roasteds" anymore...if they had peanuts at all, they were just salted.

Over the years, the bar tradition fell away. Dad would just hand the peanuts directly to me and Mom, and I graudally forgot the days of pulling open the drawer and peeking inside.

Yesterday and this morning I fell into the same sort of funk I'd fallen into right before leaving for Phoenix last year. What, exactly, the hell did I think I was doing, especially with so many friends and my parents to hang out with in DC...?!

My flight out of Dulles left at 7:10. I was pretty groggy, so I fell asleep right after we boarded. The flight was nearly empty (everyone had a row to themselves, if they wanted it) and I was stretched out with my head on a window. I woke up about an hour later to find that the stewardess had come by with snacks, and left some on the tray table nearest the aisle for me.

I noticed that there were some peanuts, and tore open the pouch to enjoy some salty goodness. Sometime between opening the pouch and getting the first few to my mouth, I snapped out of my daze enough to realize that... Sweet Jeusus, THESE ARE HONEY ROASTED!!! I leaned back contentedly, full of memories and happiness. The stewardess came back by with some coffee for me, and I flipped open a book I bought yesterday and dove in feeling much much more confident about what I'm doing for myself with this trip.

Yeah. I do need the time to myself. Yesterday I found myself upset all over again about so many of the same things from recently - last night I found myself feeding a lot of the same old weaknesses, resentments, and insecurities. (Let me say also that they weren't actually directly boy-related - it was some of the other things.) It wasn't nearly as bad as it had been, and I was able to snap out of it, and one of my friends was really there for me - but yeah, I do need to sort things out. I need to get to know myself, to get to know loneliness again. I don't mean that in a self-pitying sense, just that I need to get away from this tendency to surround myself with people (particularly boyfriends) in such a steady stream that I lose sight of what I actually feel, and think, and value - and that I lose sight of friends, and what friendship is, and what I want to be able to give to the people in my life.

So, right now I'm in Tampa. My flight to Ft. Lauderdale leaves in about an hour and I half, and I'm psyched. It's going to be a good trip.

I also realized that I seem to have a tendency of taking these trips to places my grandfather really loved - the southwest last year, this particular part of Florida this year - if I keep it up, next year I'm headed for California.

Sweet.