It’s Just a Paper Bag
I ask my husband to open the front door to the frigid winter air and bring in my order from Whole Foods. It’s January, after all, and high time I recommit to eating more plant-based foods. I’m impressed with their all- brown-paper-bag-hipster packaging. 100% recyclable, of course. Excitedly, I reach to grab my ridiculously overpriced vegan chili, pancake mix, frozen veggies, blah blah.
After everything is put away, I look into our small galley kitchen where my husband is chopping peppers and preparing chicken for the Crock Pot. I’d seriously be in the way if I tried to get to the recycling bin right now, and so I ask if he’d mind disposing of them for me when he can. “Sure, toss them over here,” he says, looking at me as I teeter near the counter. I do, and one of the bags lands gently near the bin, on its side.
And suddenly, I am two or three-years-old again, in the late 1980s, in a wonderfully vintage kitchen. My handsome father is making me giggle as he takes brown paper bags from our shopping trip to Grand Union and draws funny faces on them, cutting holes for the eyes and mouth and gently placing each over my head for ridiculous Polaroid fun. I still have a few of these shots somewhere in the archives of my mother’s basement. I am laughing that lovely, musical, toddler giggle, and my dad is chuckling with his own infectious boom. He scoops me from the highchair and swings me up into a hug, and if I knew then what I know now I would stay there forever.
Other Sundays, the brown bags would fall haphazardly to the floor as my father re-stocked the pantry. Inevitably, our tuxedo cat, Socks, would surreptitiously make his way into one, only to be discovered by a startled “Oof! Sorry,” when my dad would go to scoop up the mess and inadvertently cause a flurry of fur as Socks would jump out and scurry away, indignant.
When I was old enough, I would make my way down the aisles of Grand Union, walking alongside the cart and helping dad stock up for the week. Our favorite pastime was developed in the paper goods aisle. Dad would stand in front of the rolls of paper towels, picking his favorite patterns. Once satisfied, he would look down at me, excitedly. “Okay, go long!” I would take the cart and shuffle just a few feet down the opposite end of the aisle and turn to face him. “Go!” I would shout, smiling broadly, ready for this ultimate test of athleticism. He would make a big show of tossing me each role, cheering every time I caught one and triumphantly dunked it into our cart. When we were finished, he would jog toward me, laughing. “Great job, kiddo!” His praise would be the cloud I floated on as he hi-fived me, and we made our way to get a muffin to share for the rest of our shopping adventure.
My husband noisily crumples up the bags and stuffs them into the receptacle, jarring me from my reverie. The smell of a beautifully seasoned chicken and a warm oven brings me back to the present, and I look to the kitchen wall where a shot of my late father, playing his drums, looks over us. “You know what my dad used to do with paper bags when I was little?” I start, wistfully. “No, what’s that?” he asks, knowing that my heart needs to share this right now.
It’s just a paper bag, really. But to me, it’s the eighties. It’s a childhood filled with a scratchy beard on my cheeks the millions of times I was hugged. It’s grocery-store Olympics and priceless silly memories. It’s moments frozen in time that are also gone forever. It’s a person I would do anything to have five more minutes with. It’s an indelible mark on who I am. This paper bag represents the particles from which I am made. Magic that cannot be recaptured. A reminder to make my own, with my child, moving forward.
I wonder what form your paper bag takes?
