mothermeetstheroad

My kids and I were listening to the Zydeco masterpiece Give Him Cornbread by Beau Jocque on the way to school.  It’s a song about, you guessed, cornbread.  At some point, he shouts “Couche-couche!” which is cornbread left over from the night before sort of mushed into milk and eaten for breakfast.  I have distinct fourth-grade cafeteria memories of the boys making a huge mess on their trays pouring milk over their cornbread and mashing it up.

AG pops up from the back and responds “I love couscous!”

My thoughts:

A#1- At eight years old, hell, at eighteen years old, I had no idea what couscous was.

B#2- And I’m proud that she loves food in the way I do.

C#3- But I surely knew about couche-couche.

D#4- And it makes me very sad that the kids are disconnected from my Cajun heritage, my people.

Does every parent who leaves their childhood home feel this struggle?  I love Acadiana.  I love the people, the food, the music.  I get goosebumps when I hear Edwin Edwards talk.

My kids have already had a broader life than I did growing up there.  They’re exposed to so many different cultures, ways of life, ethnic foods, and therefore, more of the real world.

Some might say I over-romanticize. But I miss home.  And I don’t get back often enough.  So this weekend, if only for twenty-four hours, we will push off some of our commitments and head west on I-10.

And learn about couche-couche.