Tabbouleh

There is a tabbouleh recipe in the America’s Test Kitchen Vegetarian cookbook that I have made for years. It is made in a series of easy steps with time in-between, making it a bit of a food project that I return to during breaks throughout the morning. I serve the tabbouleh at dinner with a smattering of other delicious foods, hummus, of course, homemade falafel, grilled summer squash, and pita bread, which a few years ago I made from scratch with success; watching the pitas puff up in the oven was a delightful experience. But, sadly, I don’t get paid to cook and bake, and I remind myself that I can’t spend the entire day abandoning my job and playing in the kitchen. Mediterranean night is therefore a meal of compromise, my adult responsibilities sweeping in and peeling me away, but the tabbouleh is non-negotiable.

We’ve had decent success with serving our meals family-style, my adolescent eaters picking and choosing, and it was during a meal a few months ago that I looked up and noticed that both my kids had added a scoop of tabbouleh to their plates. I said nothing, as my natural impulse to narrate a scene in front of me often leads to nothing good when it comes to parenting a teen and tween. A simple comment about how I am glad they are enjoying a meal could easily swear them off of it forever. But there it was, in front of my eyes, tabbouleh on their plates, a dollop of hummus on the side.

My kids are getting older, and it’s happening so fast. This act of providing for them in various ways, while staying mostly to the side of the action, is how my role as their parent is evolving. Moments of connection appear in such small ways now, compared to how it was, and they are often led by them, which is how it should be. But I still remember how I held them when they were babies, their little bodies warm on my chest. Or in the toddler years, how we made Christmas ornaments out of homemade play-doh, me helping their little hands press cookie cutters into soft dough. Those moments have passed, yet these new ones are here. When my kids pick up something that I’ve set before them, a warmth rushes into my heart and I hold it. I allow myself to savor these moments of present day, all of us sitting around a table.

There is a newness to this practice of noticing, and a slowing down, that I am leaning into in several areas of my life, and especially with my family. The energetic flow in our house tends to swing in alignment with MY energy, whether I like it or not. When I feel a tightness and an edge, when I feel like I am not enough or that everything needs fixing, that tension seeps into the rest of our home. I can see it reflected by my family members, this angst. I can easily dive into a self-centered vortex of shame, my own mini tornado that continues to wipe out my family. And I am working so hard (which involves NOT working so hard! ha- isn’t this a funny thing?) to break out of this and return to ease. To just…be.

So what do I do now, when I notice that we have parsley and mint in our fridge that needs to be used, even though my husband is traveling and I have so much work that needs to be done? I start the day by making tabbouleh. I chop tomatoes, sprinkle them with salt, and let their juices drain into a bowl on the countertop as I walk my son to school. On that walk, we chat. It’s autumn in Chicago and the mornings are golden, and I feel the way his stride aligns with mine. I hold so much love for this passionate kid, and this enters my consciousness as we venture through Dearborn Park towards his school. He is a delightful human, and I am so proud of him.

When I get home, I move the mesh sieve of tomatoes aside, and add lemon juice to the bowl, along with bulgur wheat. I realize at this point that while I need to start working, I can’t just yet. Another need rises to the surface. I need to pour some of this love and gratitude onto paper. I grab my journal, and start to write. It occurs to me that we may only have a couple more years left of these walks with our son before he heads off to high school, and with this thought I start crying, not purely from sadness at the thought of this period of parenting eventually coming to an end, though that is there as well, but for all the things. All the ways that life brings me joy, all the things I notice. The way the sunlight hits the tops of the trees on a September morning. How exciting our daughter’s first month of high school has been. The fact that the lemons in our fridge were so super squeezable (and then I chuckle- are you crying because of lemons, Lindsay?). I write all this down. I feel centered, grounded in my heart. In this moment, I am whole.

In the evening, I sit at my son’s soccer practice and watch the sun set as the pink line rumbles past. Once home, I set out all our food, my offerings. My children help themselves, scooping up tomatoes and parsley. I am still so shocked that they like this, all those chopped up colors and textures. How did I get here, with these humans and this apartment looking over the city? I sit back and watch. I say nothing, yet on the inside, I glow.