Sometimes You Just Need to Bake a Pan of Cornbread

     Sometimes you just need to bake a pan of cornbread, you know?

     We are rushing headlong to the end of May. May is a month of transitions. School lets out for summer. Kids move from one grade to the next. Older ones graduate high school. Some come home from college for the summer, with truckloads of dirty laundry and stomachs that never fill up! Some graduate from college and move away. Sometimes far, far away. Daughters prepare to become June brides. Sons practice their garter-flinging skills as they prepare to become grooms. Snowbirds head north for the summer. Families pack up for the beach or the mountains. Spring ends. Hurricane season begins. May is the month that heralds change.

     And that’s not a bad thing.

    June brings opportunities. New projects to start. New people to meet. New places to go. New lives to begin. But, in the midst of all the change, we sometimes have a momentary longing for “what was.” We wonder how our kids grew up so quickly. How they moved from snaggle-toothed kindergartners to sophisticated college grads, or movers-and-shakers in their chosen career. We marvel at, and at the same time struggle with, rapidly advancing technology. We are so happy that we are out of the “diaper phase,” but are anxious about entering the “driver’s license phase.”  We don’t fear change, but we have a soft-spot for the way things used to be.

     How do you handle that longing? With scrapbooks or videos of days gone by? By visiting childhood friends, or cranking up “your music” on Pandora radio? Maybe it’s by cooking and eating your comfort food. That’s what I do. And my food is cornbread. Homemade. With buttermilk. Like my mama makes.

  

     It didn’t matter what we were celebrating or commiserating in our house when I was

growing up. Homemade buttermilk cornbread was always on the table. Its accessories ranged from black-eyed peas to chicken and dumplings, to turnip greens or meatloaf. If I was sick, my mama made cornbread. If I won an award, my mama made cornbread. If I’d had a rough day at school, my mama made cornbread. If I needed a little lovin’ after being scolded for a mischievous act, my mama made cornbread. If I was happy for no reason at all, my mama made cornbread.

     This May has been a month of transitions for me. My youngest graduated college and moved away. Kinda far, far away. I put my house on the market. I jettisoned a lot of “things” in the process. All good, positive changes… but change nonetheless.

I don’t want to go back to the past. I love my present! I love where my adult children are, and the difference they are making in the world. I’m all about embracing change and looking for something new to do, read, eat or cook every single day! Maybe you are the same way. But sometimes, after a rapid succession of transitions, you just need to indulge in the familiar. For just a little bit. Sometimes you just need a smidgen of the old days to give you the fortification to reach out to the new ones.

     Sometimes, you just need to bake a pan of cornbread. And eat it. Y’all