Love (Languages)  and Lobster (Crab)
By Stephanie Kemp

Assignment: Write for 30 minutes about a recent "Complicated Moment.”

GO!

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It is the best kind of home cooked family dinner on a regular school night Wednesday.

The only thing that could have made it better would have been if her sister was sitting with us at the table, instead of the bowl of tangerines taking her spot in order to make room for the enormous pile of crab legs now holding court in the center. (Her sister is in college.)

I meant to take a picture of this bounty from the sea, but was afraid if I went downstairs to get my phone I would miss out on my portion. We don’t fuck around with crab legs…(especially when they were on sale in bulk at Costco this morning and my husband agreed to cook all 5000 of them, for the three of us.) By all accounts and normal eating standards, I should have been able to get my phone for the photo and still have had plenty of crab.

Let’s just say that we are a wildly competitive (food eating) family.

So the three of us (plus the tangerines) are at the table with: rice pilaf, broccolini and some cucumbers for anyone who doesn’t like broccolini. The best part is that we each have our own little ramekin of melted garlic butter with chives for dipping. We don’t have to share or drip.

Melted butter also adds emotional heft (to any meal) because it immediately conjures my mom at her happiest - greasy fingers, any kind of shellfish, any member(s) of her family (but mostly her daughters), laughing smile and all. She loved (and put) butter on everything.

(Her Canadian Club has hit the skids, but we have some hillbilly white in its place.)

Perfect.
Dinner.
(Even with the tangerines, but only because her sister is currently having a blast.)

Lucky.
Parents.
(Who always know this.)

So we got started. Usually at family dinners we talk about a trillion things, but on this night we talked about form. Crab eating form. She was definitely the best, with my husband coming in at a close second and me in a pretty dismal third. She literally sucked every ounce and inch of meat out of those legs and never looked back. She was missile-like in her precision. I have never seen such focus. The only reason the two of them tolerated my crab leg eating bullshit (get the easy parts out, slather in butter, toss the leftover leg with a shit ton of uneaten deliciousness still attached into the waste bowl, then lick all of my fingers, including my thumb and start again) was so that they could retrieve the legs from the bowl and take them down properly after I gave up.

Everyone is happy when we are eating crab (or lobster rolls - as pictured above, since I missed tonight’s photo op window).

Six legs in, she was going on and on and on about how happy she was, which of course, made us happy.

I never take family dinners for granted. Maybe this is because I so rarely cook them. My husband has always been the chef. I didn’t realize this until I started to notice that I was met with complete silence every time I asked what anyone wants “for dinner tonight.”

I really only make:

Tetrazzini
Smoked salmon spinach pasta with asparagus
Tacos (regular AND bulgogi!)
Soup(s)
Hot breakfast everyday
Cookies, cakes, brownies, banana bread, and………………recently pie.

You get the drift.

Dad is the chef.

So she is in heaven - eating crab, liking a new boy and maybe another new boy, waiting to hear from the last three colleges, having gotten into the first seven and feeling (very) happy about two of them, when she says,

“Dad. Your Love Language is clearly cooking.”*
“Mom. What’s yours?”

What?
My what?

You would have thought she asked me how to design a rocket or to recite the constitution. I had (have) no fucking idea what my love language is.

But for some reason, in the moment (and right now), this felt like an epic failure.

Instant Shame.

The kind where you hope your cheeks aren’t immediately and furiously purple.

What kind of Woman/Mom/58 Year Old Person on the Planet Earth has no idea what her love language is, especially when her husband’s is so “clearly cooking” ?

I stumbled around a little bit, trying to come up with something on the fly (which I’m usually really good at), but nothing came to mind.

Do I not feel love?
Communicate it properly?
Am I not really excellent at or committed to anything?
Have I given up on trying to share?

What is my fucking love language, goddammit?

Luckily, one of my old love languages used to be acting, so I was able to appear normal as I continued to biff the crab legs and sip my wine while I tried to puzzle this out, wishing we had made another box of rice pilaf.

I watched my daughter, still laser focused, not letting a morsel of crustacean go to waste, while my husband just smiled at her and casually took down his (very fair) portion of crab.

They were so happy and I wanted to cry.

What is wrong with me?

And then I realized what it was……….(this might be a lie, because I think I just realized it now, in this complicated moment of being forced to write down a complicated moment):

My love language is being a mom.

It is growing and feeding and protecting my kids.

One of whom is being fed by someone else (even if he is her dad) and the other who has turned into an independent bowl of tangerines.

Both are grown.

My daughters who don’t need me anymore…
My daughters who are fully………

TIME!
Put down your words!

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(This is perfect, because who I am I to say who my daughters fully are? That is up to them….to decide………and be………and share.)

And it is up to me to learn a new love language. (Or maybe I will just go back to France, since French is, and has actually always been, my OG Love Language.  I just forgot because I was so busy learning and loving the language of being a mom.)

The language my mom taught me.

She was fluent.

(I will tell this to my daughter/s and/or the tangerines tonight as my husband serves us Pasta Amatriciana….):



Ps. In an impossible turn of events, my husband just texted this photo from today’s Costco run with the caption:

“Shhhhhhh…….(For a rainy day!)”



He is fluent, too…

Pps…He probably wouldn’t want you to think he only heats up Costco crab legs and makes pasta, so here is a picture of his burger (which he will now be making me tomorrow night):





Ppps…………………………………………………………