Grit and Gravy

It feels like I grew up on grits, but I really only got them when I was lucky.  I don’t remember many folks in my house enjoying the Southern staple; however, my great-grandmother always made them for me when I stayed with her, and she served them with a runny egg and a thickly sliced homegrown tomato.  Grits remind me of her – stern and yet soft.  I think of grits as one of the things, like collard greens, that signifies how Southerners can last, can thrive even, through most things.  And then there is the gravy.

I learned to make gravy by throwing away a good deal of bacon grease and flour that turned to paste in my iron skillet.  I never ruin a batch anymore, and nothing makes my children or guests more excited to be at the table than a pan of cream gravy, so when a colleague used the word to describe the mystical ways things seem to always work out when we don’t press too hard or scream too loudly, I fell in love with gravy all over again.  One of the many small things that niggle my mind is the way that we have few ways of expressing our gratitude for good fortune that don’t rub others the wrong way in some way.  Blessed?  Bugs those who question the existence of God.  Lucky?  Makes the social justice skin crawl.  Gravy?  Just right.   Granny feeding me grits was luck, especially because she did not change her menu to fit the whims of anyone after rearing five kids through the Great Depression.  My finding an exciting new job in a different part of the country right as my ten-year relationship ended was gravy.

This blog is a chronicle of what transpires as I move from here to there on the road that lies before me – a road I expect to require plenty of grit and gravy.

To quote Jeanette Winterson paraphrasing Gertrude Stein pretending to be Alice B. Toklas:

It is going dark.  There are bombs exploding.  Alice is losing patience.  She throws down the map and shouts at Gertrude: “THIS IS THE WRONG ROAD.” 

Gertrude drives on.  She says, “Right or wrong, this is the road and we are on it.”