Shana Ross – Moms Dont Forget the Rice

Once, actually, I did forget to make the rice. We were having guests the kind you still want to impress; we had a salad, a soup, two curries and no rice, or at least, when the doorbell rang and I realized, no rice that could be edible in less than 30 minutes. Sometimes moms forget to make rice. It’s a thing that happens in the world, to someone somewhere all the time. It’s even understandable in mortal terms but let’s face it, unless it was the kind of forgetting that is an act of god, meaning an honest to god accident, moms don’t forget the rice. In our house, dads forget rice at least half the time because they don’t like it all that much, like, they have a little because it seems like they should but they never scoop extra on their plate to eat with a ladle of just sauce at the end, soupy glorious, so it’s an afterthought for dads to make it in the first place. Moms don’t forget things like rice. If the meal is supposed to have it she will start it early so that it can steam while everything else is in progress and the timing will be right so no one has to wait and the food hits the table all at once and she will remember how much to make so that there is the right amount of extra. Moms have to be thinking at least that far in advance but right now I am only thinking about the next ninety minutes and what I am thinking is that I may forget to make the rice this time because I am tired and anxious and grieving and it’s the usual except tonight it’s heavier, like how people from the mountains feel about the air down here unless it’s the other way around. Sometimes I confuse gravity and oxygen which explains the tension in my left shoulder better than “slept wrong.” If I forget the rice I can write this poem instead. If I forget the rice, my husband and kid will be extra kind so I know they are not mad and they understand that these things happen and they are grateful for the delicious curry with no onion and no cilantro both of which I love and they appreciate how hard I work which is historically true and, if measured in the magnitude of agony and effort, still true but I don’t want to get into it with them I want to learn to take a compliment and to accept care and maybe even to be mothered myself on occasion. It’s easier to make the rice. I think I will go ahead and do that. It will pack well for lunch and no one will have to worry if I’m OK.

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