Pancake People

We made pancakes this morning and Octave was flooded with memories from Costa Rica. I remembered and found this journal entry from March…

We’ve made pancakes every morning this week. The first morning, full of nostalgia, missing home and confused how we could miss anything, when everything looks like this. Wild, lush, wavy and unwound. I wonder how we might fit inside a place so foreign. But I would know and remember the salty sound of the pacific anywhere in the world. Same ocean, feelings and worlds away.  Far is not forever. 

Pancakes bubble up on the edges and then finally the center…”See this is what I was talking about. This is how you know a pancake is ready to flip.” Of course there is some mystery in there, and it depends on whether it’s the first or last pancake, and what type of pan you use. I know cast iron best, the way the heat grows and growls the hotter it burns. How at the end it is too hot and impatient for batter to bubble, and it’s likely to burn. “Sometimes you just flip it and hope for the best,” I tell them. 

They are so proud they are making pancakes alone. I am so proud I have the patience to let them do it. The kitchen is our happy place, our easy point of connection. But we’ve not been here in years, it feels. “These pancakes smell like Portland,” Octave says with guts and gusto. We don’t say it, but we both kind of miss Portland, and I’m not sure why. We were so eager to leave. 

Now we are here, inhaling beauty we can’t quite name, but will years later, when we are back in Portland making pancakes. Someone might even say, “this reminds me of Costa Rica.” 

The butter browns into a distasteful color but a scent that is so luscious I close my eyes to remember the mundane. I let go of the pressure to fill our days. To see and do.  These mornings making pancakes in our outdoor kitchen, wild and lush, simple and salty, this is what we came for. This is why we are here, so I can teach them how to make pancakes. Unrushed, with reverence.