The sizzling sound from the frying pan, mixed with gospel music became familiar the wider my eyes got. Though this two bedroom apartment was cold, the warm scent of pancakes and bacon eased my frigid Sunday mornings.
Stumbling from my bed, which was pushed against a wall where the paint peeled revealing shapes that shoved my imagination to the ceiling; one foot on the cold floor, the other met the fake leather of a raggedy slipper. Walking from my room tripping over the raised threshold, my mother sang in silence with her eyes closed and hands waving. She lip sung like cameras were in the sun-rays that swam between the yellow curtains, covering old windows that could never beat winter of the 80’s. “How many pancakes you want” I always responded “two” as I walked around the other side of the table hiding my morning stiffy. Smiling, I remember mornings not making it to the bathroom. “Hurry up before your breakfast gets cold”. I would always break the morning in with a joke. “Ma you need a new house coat, that hole on the side gets bigger every time you fart”. She was always too slow, I was always able to duck that open hand left hook, as the ash from her cigarette that she held between her fingers snowed on top of my durag.
She never took those pink rollers out of her hair on Sundays. But when she did, her hair draped down to her lower back, “good hair” they called it; mama was so naturally beautiful. She sat for hours rolling her hair in that tall mirror that she carried from her room to the kitchen; her arms up, hands moving in a constant twisting motion, as the roller way back down to the scalp. A few feet away was that old hot comb that sat on the fire of an old gas stove with no knobs. It seemed the prerequisite of this process was Smokey Robinson, Al Greene, and Marvin Gaye’s voice. That small radio that sat on top of the refrigerator that was covered with fruit shaped magnets, held the songs that shaped my childhood. Sunday mornings seemed like they had extra hours, I wonder if the other days were envious of that.
“Ok, now get out of my kitchen, I have to put my pies in the oven”
“oooooh, you’re making sweet potato pies?”
“as a matter of fact I aint making shit, I have to sew this hole in my house coat”
We’d both crack up laughing aloud. Besides looking alike, we have twin loud laughs. She was a cooking machine; right after breakfast, dinner would be on the stove before the metal burner covers that sat over the fire could cool. If for some reason she was sick on a Sunday (which rarely happened), it felt like it rained inside of apartment 3R at 240 Moffat St. for the rest of the week. Everyday that followed would limp its way across the week.
Sundays: The black and white movies; the smell of soul food; the smell of burning hair from the straightening comb; the feel of tradition; and the smile of mothers that they don’t make anymore.