Burger Reminisence

An older story that I tuned up a bit.

I was a young mom. I’m still young, but I was very young when I had my son, Rowen. There is no shortage of young moms and I do not count myself apart from them. In reflection though, a conversation with my Mom in law several years back comes to mind…

 

 

“Snewt tells me it’s your birthday! Happy Birthday!”

“Thank you! Yes, it is my birthday.”

“Great! So, how old are you?”

“17.”

“… Does Snewt know?”

 

This was way back when my husband and I first started dating. He’s only five years older than me, but his Mom’s low whisper that day made me feel like I was just a few years out of my nappies and her son was much too mature for me.

I had skipped a grade, graduated early and went right into college. Snewt and I knew of each other and had spoken a few times through high school, as people happen to. His cousin and I shared an apartment for my first year of college; during this time I got to know all sorts of Esk’éts.

There was never really a quiet day at that apartment. Any given time of the week there were between 1 to 15 people crowded into that shoebox of varying relation and friendship. Which was fine, I enjoyed the company. I put up with my roommate’s friends and they vacated the area when my friends came over for a girls’ night in. When I say shoebox, I mean it. It was a tiny little two bedroom apartment with a large room that was the kitchen and living room with an itty bitty bathroom stuffed in the middle. We had a couch, a table and beds in the respective bedrooms.  My room, with 90% of visitors being guys, was off limits. I have a picture somewhere of seven of them flopped around the couch.

This was the time of dances. Every weekend and sometimes during the week there was a dance somewhere. Since I generally had a truckload with friends, my roommate and his friends - Snewt and I would meet up a lot since his cousins would migrate into his truck and all end up back at the apartment. I guess this is what would be called our dating time: shuffling friends back and forth from dances, movies, the mall, what have you.

But he ended up getting serious with my cousin for a while so I let that thought go and concentrated on my schooling. I was offered a few scholarships at a few universities around the province. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do so it wasn’t hard for my Dad to convince me to stay home for a year and figure it out. Sometime during that summer Snewt broke up with my cousin and eventually he asked me to… go to the movies with him.

I get a real kick out of dating that I see in a lot of movies. There are dinner reservations, white tablecloths, or a movie and the girl is all decked out and the guy picks her up; and at the end of the night there's usually a picturesque kiss.

Life around here doesn’t really permit dating like that. Or at least young life as I knew it then. People hung out in groups based on sport, family, similar aspirations, etc. Once we grew up enough to be comfortable with ourselves we usually still hung around with the same group. I had graduated with some of my cousins and they moved away or took a year off. I was one of few that wanted to go to the college in town, hence my moving in with a friend and being immersed in a new group.

Dating is then refined to spending more time with an individual person in a group. Such as sitting together while eating in between hockey games, or making plans for groups to meet up at the movies, dance, whatever. We started seeing each other right when all the cookie cutter teeny bopper romance movies started coming out and we had a good laugh at the dating that was represented on the big screen. There are few white tablecloths to be found in our small town, and I wasn’t about to make him drive 100 km from his reserve to mine just to go to McDonald’s and a movie.

By this time it was clear that we were pretty serious about each other. So he took me home to meet his folks and vice versa. This was done over the usual month or so; I spent a couple weeks out Esk’ét and he spent a couple weeks out Xats’úll. The family tree was trotted out a few times to make sure we weren’t crossing any blood lines. Fall time came, and my birthday.

My family at this time remembered just how old I was.  I was pulled around and browbeaten by several family members with best intentions in mind and concerns about the age difference. It was such a big deal then.

I lost touch with a lot of my friends for a while. Once I became pregnant, willingly at such a young age, it was like I had something they didn’t want to catch. Which I can understand.

Planned pregnancy was such a foreign concept to our friends. Family was a smudge on the horizon of successful dreams for the young ladies. Family was something you were roped into or tied down to for the young men.

Friends tried to keep in touch but they were caught up in their single lives. I was happily pregnant. There wasn’t a lot of relatable conversation to be had. 
 

 

“I had the best time going out last night! They played awesome music and I got asked to slow dance by a couple of cute guys.”

“Right on. I’ve been craving bannock with mayonnaise on top.” Pause to open car door and puke.

“Oh…”

“And powdered laundry detergent. Damned if I don’t want to stick a spoon in that sucker and eat it.”

“Huh.”

 

Pretty awkward. My son’s younger years left a lot to be desired for social interaction as well. Snewt kept working and I was out at the cabin with Rowen, Kevin in the other house. Snewt’s parents were often traveling the world doing workshops. This lack of big people communication was really brought to light when I went for coffee one rare day with a friend. She got a kick out of me talking to her like a two year old, clapping my hands and everything. Silly me.

When Rowen was about three I decided to go back to school. A program I had been interested in came to town so I applied. I drove the hour drive into town nearly every day for my classes. Snewt’s mom and sister were able to help with Rowen, and we put him in daycare down the rez for the bulk of the day. It was hard to be separated from him that long after it just being me and him at home most of the time.

One day I found myself in between classes and starving. Money was tight (as always) but I spared the few dollars to get myself a Big Mac. I parked in front of Denny’s and hunched over guiltily to enjoy my burger, silently promising Snewt and Rowen that I would bring them something home later.

A lone car crossed the intersection and I caught the eye of the driver. She was a young woman about my age, similarly hunched over a burger, and we briefly shared a moment of understanding companionship.

This was exactly the moment I realized just how happy I was with my life. Despite everything, we had finally managed to carve out a space in the world for our small family.

Life was good that day. And every once in a while the tangy bite of a Big Mac will remind me of just that.

Author's Note

This was a string of thoughts I had written down while eating that burger. I fleshed it out a bit to warm myself up a bit for working on some more stories and poems.
Snewt is my husband's name, it means Wind in Secwepemc (Shuswap). The middle is more of an ow sound.
Esk’ét is pronounced quite how it looks, and Xats’úll can be pronounced ha-tsooth.
My spellcheck tells me I've taken some poetic license with a few of the words in here; you'll find that in more of my writing once I get a chance to post it. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed this short story!

Reviews

[Norma M Sutton]

I enjoyed reading about your growing up. The reference to bringing out the family trees makes me chuckle. In this area/community the first thing you were asked by a elder was "who are you," which literally means who's child are you. We are all related if you go back 4 or 5 generations. I've come to think that that question was because they were doing the math to see just how closely related we were to some of their single family members lol. I don't see that as much now. In the last 10 or 20 years there have been a influx of outlanders from all over the country. Dating here is pretty much the same as there, or was when I was that age. McD's was were most of my dating took place lol.

I appreciate the pronunciation help. I always look at words I don't know and scratch my head, even words from this area can be spoken is several ways, depending on which generation you are talking to.

[Krista Punk]

Your such an amazing writer...bringing out your ideas and thoughts perfectly for outsiders to understand the complexity that is the puddle....which in the end came down to a burger ;) loved it

[lawrence bear]

I enjoyed this story, however, the end leaves my mouth watery as I am now craving for a Big Mac.

[Samuel Dickens]

Thank you for that entertaining tale. You're an excellent writer and story-teller, you know. The whole thing is very well concieved and put together.

[Marie Harrison]

Very sweet and endearing story. Hope your family is doing well. Emjoyed your writing.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

This has a great atmospheric feel to it...almost honeymoon meets college dorm type feel...It has the flavor of youth and romance I guess is what I'm trying to say. I enjoyed the read.