The Art of Being On My Own

I got married straight out of my parents' home so I never lived alone. Never "kept house," never cooked or cleaned or felt responsible for the running of a home. In Argentina, my mother had a housekeeper who had been with our family forever. My Dad loved to cook and both he and my mother took turns in introducing us to wonderful food. There was no "I don't like this" before trying! No special meals made for you if you didn't like what was on the menu that night either! I learned everything that I now know about food from them. The joy of a perfectly heavenly piece of fried fish. The soundness (for lack of a better word) of a delicious "Puchero" Argentina's version of Pot of Feu...boiled dinner. Lots of veggies and a slab of bacon and garbanzo beans, a chunk of Caracu (bone marrow) and beef or chicken and sometimes both thrown in the pot.I ate my first Escargot at 5 and liked it. Nobody made mashed potatoes like my mom.

My father would dress up a simple beef cutlet or Milanesa with foie gras one day and another with anchovies and peppers. A perfectly baked chicken was a weekly routine and of course our Sunday asado which is the typical Argentine barbecue with sweetbreads and sausages and the best possible beef in the world. Sundays when we would all await in eager anticipation almost fainting from the aroma coming from the parrilla. I remember lying on the grass with my dog both of us salivating and waiting to be called to have our late lunch. After lunch...a bit of "sobremesa" which is just sitting around chatting. Soon enough, each one of us would drop into bed for an afternoon siesta. I remember the sounds in the house and in the garden on those lazy summer days. The birds chirping on the trees. An occasional bark from one of our dogs.

The only thing I ever made in those days was a cake called "Delicia"...pretty much a simple enough way to let a young girl experiment in the kitchen without much fuss. One of the most famous cooks in Argentina called Dona Petrona provided that recipe in her book. She was probably one of the first chefs to become a celebrity and have her own TV show in Buenos Aires (maybe the world?) and boss her assistant Maria around. Poor Maria did all the work...chopping, steaming, boiling, baking and acted as her gopher or sous chef! I don't remember seeing Maria's face, but I could see her shuffling stuff in the background and Petrona, an imposing presence took front and center stage.

So there I was, newly married and totally ignorant as to the mysteries of the kitchen and the rest of a house. I didn't even know how to make a proper bed! I still don't know how to wash clothes as my children will gleefully tell you. When they went off to college they knew they were on their own on that one!

Little by little and with the love and support of my husband, I learned what I needed to learn. After messing up a simple roast beef and on the verge of tears and feeling totally incompetent he simply told me that he was not interested in my homemaking abilities. He married me not Dona Petrona! The most important thing that I learned from him was to value and practice my independence. He trusted me to do well in whatever I undertook. He gave me space, time and enormous amounts of love and encouragement in everything I did. And I did these things in so many cities, in so many "new" homes and countries! Homemaking for me was building a new home from scratch every time we moved. And we moved a lot. Without knowing, Esteban taught me how to live without him.

And for the last 16 years of my life, I have lived alone. At first it was a little scary to think of all the responsibilities landing straight on my lap. Nobody to really ask. No shared decisions. No "this is your job, this is mine" type of thing. It was all mine. And in a hurry I had to learn how to do it all, including the tedious part, you know, the finances and the bills and the daily routines, and selling and buying homes and cars and being a strong presence in my kids' lives for both of us and most importantly, the loss of him. I think I should be awarded a PhD for all of this. I think I've done well.

And like he would have expected, I thrived. I have done more things that I ever expected to do and learned the ultimate lesson: how to live without him. Not alone but rather on my own.