Salad Days

Lingering in a diner, Amy Losak learned important lessons on loving life's delicious details from an expert: Her mother.

gleaming tulip beds

a woman checks her teeth

for lipstick smears

In the 1980's, it was our go-to place: The Flagship diner in Briarwood, Queens.

Ma and I would share sumptuous salads. On an off-white, scratched oval platter, peaks of potato salad and coleslaw encircled the celery-studded mound of chicken salad. The plate glistened with thick cucumber circles, rings of purple onion, large leaves of iceberg lettuce, and other veggies.

Sometimes, for a special splurge, just a few dollars extra, we ordered the shrimp salad. More than enough for two.

The black and gold-trimmed wicker basket brimmed with pillowy, soft yellow challah slices, crusty rolls and seeded breadsticks. Yes, I would sneak them into my handbag to snack on later. That way, I wouldn't have to buy dessert. The gooey, frosted walnut brownie in the vivid pastry display case beckoned. But they were too rich for my self-discipline, and my purse, at the time.

Ma always wanted to linger in the padded maroon booth, to forget the daily stresses of being a caregiver to my much older dad, who had dementia and other ailments.

She would cradle her mug, as though her lithe hands would keep the brew hot and give her a reason – permission -- to stay. That mug was like a talisman, an anchor of escape. The spiraling steam was soothing amidst the bustle. The chatter and clatter of the customers and waitstaff offered a measure of respite, an opportunity to relax and just “be.”

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white wings

one

on purple clover

Ma was an avid observer of small moments. She had the poet’s eye for finding magic in mundanity, such as a generous helping of diner salad and a cleansing cup of tea. A booth worn and dimpled from constant use. Her five senses were always vibrating.

But I was always in a rush – eager to be “somewhere else.” Why, I have no idea.

She savored, I stinted. She strolled, I sprinted.

We had so much to say to each other. I don't remember what we talked about. I wonder now if I truly heard her then. But Ma always listened. She always paid attention.

In the years since her sudden and shocking death in 1996, I’ve learned how and when – and why -- to slow down. Ma gave me a precious legacy that took years for me to understand.

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I have put her lessons into practice:

Rather than make a mad run for it, I will let the bus to work leave so I can watch a black swallowtail knit the air around my neighbor’s rose bush.

  That small, unexpected but glorious moment will never be repeated. And so, in that instant, I decide to stay.

The delicacy and pureness of that sighting will dissipate into the fumes and fuss. Another belching bus will come.

I’ve learned a different way to be breathless. But I’m no longer in a rush.

  Looking back now, I wish that I – we -- had stayed just a little while longer in that neighborhood diner. Now, it’s the words that both of us left unsaid that linger, like steam rising from a mug.

following the course

of the raindrop intently

still, it disappears

(Author's Note: The haiku opening this piece is my own; the other two were written by my mother, Sydell Rosenberg.)

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Amy Losak is an award-winning short-form poet. Like her mother, Sydell Rosenberg (a charter member in 1968), Amy is a member of the Haiku Society of America. Amy and Syd’s collaborative chapbook, Wing Strokes Haiku (Kelsay Books), was released in 2022. Syd’s poetry chapbook (which Amy helped edit), Poised Across the Sky, came out in 2020 (Kattywompus Press). She also is an aspiring children’s author represented by D4EO Literary Agency. Amy is also a veteran public relations consultant with decades of knowledge, skill, and experience. She and her husband Cliff have two cats, Winnie and Penny.

Image Credits:

Diner salad by Dong Cheng

Diner booth by Hans Vivek