nourishment

No one’s ever made better grits than my grannie.

Maybe that’s not true, or maybe it is — how could anyone really know? It’s the memory that’s true. The way she’d ladle those perfect grits into the same plain, straight-sided bowls, the kind that stacked like sentinels in her kitchen cabinets. Those bowls, now nestled in my parents’ cabinets, quietly waiting for the day they’ll pass to me, where they’ll continue to stand guard. Nothing fancy about them. No delicate patterns or gold trim. Just sturdy, reliable vessels, the kind that outlasted even her, as if time itself couldn’t diminish their strength.

A bowl of her grits could fix anything. On sick days, it was medicine, a balm for a sore throat, a fever, the fog of a restless night. On good days, it was the final touch, a daily vitamin, a hug, the taste of everything being right with the world. I remember the butter melting into amber pools, sliding into every crevice like rivers carving canyons, the salt crystals dissolving like tiny stars returning to the universe. The warmth seeping through the ceramic and into my hands, steam rising like a sigh. I’d carry it to the living room, bare feet against the cool brick floor, legs tucked beneath me as I settled at the coffee table, ready for a replay of Match Game ‘78. Or I’d sit at the dark-grained kitchen table, where her chair creaked as she perched beside me, her eyes soft and watchful as I ate.

She always offered a “Careful, it’s hot,” as if she hadn’t said it a thousand times before. Maybe that’s what made her grits taste so good — the way they were served, quiet and steady, day after day.

I don’t try to make them now. What would be the point? Lightning doesn’t strike twice, and ghosts don’t stir pots. There’s no use in boiling water and whisking cornmeal, chasing a taste that’s been gone as long as she has. No amount of measuring or fancy ingredients could conjure what she made with store-brand staples and a pot she’d probably had since the Johnson administration.

But it wasn’t just the grits. It was the way she moved in the kitchen, her presence, her rhythm. It was her leaning over the stove, shoulder blades like wings, the morning sunlight slanting in through the window. It was the way she scraped the spoon around the bottom of the pot, coaxing the last bit free, never wasting a drop. It was the way she’d pass me the bowl, her fingers brushing mine, not just handing me the bowl, but offering something more — the hushed love she poured into every gesture.

One day, when the bowls come to me, I’ll stack them neatly in my own cabinets, nicked and worn from decades of use. Maybe some mornings, I’ll take one down and set it on the table, empty. As if she might sit down. As if she might lean forward and tell me that her grits really were the best, that no one else could make them like she did.

I tell myself it’s okay if the memory is wrong, if I’ve smoothed the rough edges, sweetened it up. If I’ve turned the plain into something sacred, as memories tend to do, softening what once felt ordinary into something we can’t live without. Adding a mellow glow where there was once only the hum of fluorescent light, shifting the unremarkable into something we can’t let go of. It still serves me. It still feels true. I’ve carried it with me through decades, across state lines and moves and all the growing up that pulled me away from childhood comforts.

Because somewhere in there, in the haze of butter and salt, I know what it felt like to be full — not just with food, but with the certainty of being loved. To be seen. To belong.

To close my eyes and find my way back to that kitchen, to that moment before the world grew so vast and uncertain. Back to those grits, the ones no one, not even me, could ever quite make again.

If you made it this far, click that itty-bitty digital organ! ❤️