Transforming a Dreary Day: The Power of Nostalgia and Comfort Food

Memories: His shock of dark chestnut hair, still thick, without a touch of gray after seven decades, a rebuke to the supposed ravages of aging. His blue eyes the color of cornflowers twinkling as he regaled me with the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors, a tale that I only later learned was poached from the Bible. His ever-present scent of Yardley’s lavender shaving soap. His soup pot on the stove burbling with the day’s potpourri of homegrown vegetables, beans, and stock, never the same twice and always delicious. Our weekly trips to the library, and especially the special bookstore forays to mark a birthday, Christmas, or a stellar report card.

Papa gave me Huckleberry Finn when I turned ten. It was a hard cover, with a clear plastic dust jacket. One of my most treasured possessions, it occupied a place of pride on a shelf in my childhood bedroom next to Heidi, Anne of Green Gables and Little Women from the same series, the Illustrated Junior Library. 

Now, almost seven decades later on a dreary day in late December, I am curled up on my couch in New York City, many miles and lifetimes away from my grandparents’ house on Bridge Street. I’m reading James, the novel by Percival Everett that tells Twain’s most famous story from the slave Jim’s point of view. A thick lentil, bean and vegetable soup simmers in the kitchen, it’s fragrance filling my apartment with nostalgia.

I remember the gentle man whom I loved so dearly, who shaped me in ways I continue to discover, whose genes live on in his great granddaughter, my daughter, who looks just like him. Thank you Papa for introducing me to the world of literature (and good home cooking!). And thank you, Mr. Everett, for sparking memories that warm my heart, not to mention filling this writer’s soul with awe at your immense talent.