One Time by Sharon Creech

Author:Sharon Creech
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

Komorebi and Pasta

September and its train of warm days and nights had vanished, and into its place crept the cooler days and cold nights of October. Trees blazed orange and gold and red, and nearly every day when the sun filtered through those leaves, I stopped to acknowledge komorebi. I was not alone in that. At the bus stop, inevitably someone would point out the light through nearby trees and the dancing shadows on the ground.

“Komorebi—over there!”

“Komorebi!”

Soon the winds of November would arrive and send the leaves flying. Was there a word for that? Cascade? Deluge? Neither was quite right. The word needed to combine the cold, the wind, the whirling leaves.

At home, Dad kicked the furnace and shouted unmentionable words at it. We struggled to close stuck windows, accompanied by more unmentionable words from Dad.

“Do not listen,” he said. “Do not use these words. These are words only for frustrated older people.”

The weekly parade of pasta creations from the grandmother next door continued, despite my parents’ attempts to stop them.

“Maybe you’re not forceful enough,” I suggested. “What did you say to her, Dad?”

“I said that her pasta was delicious, but that it was too much for us. She said, ‘Nonsense! You can never have too much pasta.’ She sounds just like Auntie Pasta.”

“Maybe you need to say we are getting too fat.”

“I tried that. She pinched my stomach and said, ‘Well, only a little, but the povera Gina, she needs more fat on her!’”

We snuck portions out of the house to take to the Frails, but they no longer seemed so enchanted with our offerings.

“Oh, more—”

“Pasta.”

“How very—”

“Very—”

“Um, generous—”

“And thoughtful—”

“But really there are others—”

“Yes, others who would benefit—”

“From your exceedingly generous—”

“And kind—”

“And delicious—”

“Offerings.”

A day or two after our visits to the Frails, Miss Lightstone would again mention the “generosity and thoughtfulness” of Miss Judy, who had brought ravioli or cavatelli or lasagna to share with the faculty. When Antonio would turn immediately to me, I would erase from my face any indication of guilt.

I thought to myself, shiyou ga nai. It can’t be helped, so why worry about it?

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