To Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches

In elementary school, in a line on the dryer as we head out the door, our brown lunch bags lined up with our initials: T, R, K, M, S. We’d grab one as we head out the door.

I don’t know how my parents did it, and frankly, I don’t want to. I cannot imagine raising five children, even if we were all awesome and easy, which we weren’t.

I was a picky eater. Some nights I would come to the dinner table and just--what?--sigh? I remember thinking it was all just inedible. The beans too overcooked, the hamburgers too pink, the potatoes too smooth or too lumpy. Nights like this, Mom would make me an ice cream shake with a raw egg blended in and call it a day.

So, grabbing our lunch bags was a frightening because I may get the wrong one and that would be unbearable. I may be forced to see my brother’s Kraft Ham sandwich or my sister's peanut butter and jelly sandwich with strawberry (with seeds and clumps of berries--torture!) jam instead of grape jelly.

You’d think a kid would make the best of it, just eat the sandwich and go to recess. I wish I could explain how it felt to see the strawberry jelly ooze out the side of the bread or to see the edges of the ham poke out between the crust. Though today, I consider myself adventurous and want to believe I could sit at any table and eat any thing, back then it was a culinary minefield.

Peanut butter (crunchy) and jelly (no seeds) sustained me, year in and year out. Through middle school when I wore (literally) rose colored glasses that covered ¾ of my face and believed it was cool. Through high school when I wanted to be so much more than some kid in a seat in a school in Dallas.

Even now. 48 years old and I still pack peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When I cannot imagine how I will get through the day, but I know I will, I pack one. When I have slept recklessly and madly the night before, I pack one. When I worry, I pack one.

And I have been known to take them into meetings with chair persons and deans. I used to apologize, but I don’t anymore. This is my lunch. Peanut butter and jelly. And I’m eating it now. In this meeting. And you better not say thing one about it.