dad, day 2

by Rosie Coleman

Hello! This week, we have Rosie Coleman writing for us. Talking on intimacy and food as a medium to build intimacy, linking special memories to the very present. Hope you are excited as much as we are.

Bio: Rosie (she/her) is a curator, researcher and editor from Newcastle upon Tyne currently based in Glasgow where she is doing an MLitt Curatorial Practice at GSA. Her work looks to facilitate contexts for exchange and collectivity, and is situated within practical and theoretical approaches towards care, labour, support, relations and intimacy. 

@rosieecoleman

Thanks! Kate + Sinae

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Day 2 – dad

I get home from the gym this morning and make porridge for breakfast (again), topped with my usual but this time with an added banana. I’ve always had an on-off relationship with bananas. Lucy told me at the weekend there is a skill to finding a good banana; she closely assesses them in the supermarket, they must be not too ripe, not too green, not too hard but then slightly hard at the top, so they ripen at home but not too quickly. I didn’t assess this banana as it’s my flatmates that I just took from the fruit bowl. 

I make a coffee too, with a scant amount of oat milk as I’m running short, so it is mostly black. I drink this in between a hot shower, which means the coffee is finished cold. You don’t drink coffee, only cups of tea. I went completely off cups of tea since nana died. I think it’s something I associate with visits to see her on Sundays, and now I can’t seem to stomach tea at all. I’m not sure you know this about me, as you always offer me a cup of tea when I am at home, and you definitely don’t know the reason why I always say no thank you. I know you make cereal this morning and leave it to stand for ten minutes until it gets really soggy and then you eat it. Once my mum’s sister didn’t understand this, so she threw your cereal in the bin.

The banana does a job of slow releasing my energy because I’m not hungry until lunch. I meet Emma in the Barnes kitchen, and heat one of these Bol Coconut Lentil Turmeric Dhal things in the microwave, something that reeled me in the supermarket the other day because it was on special offer. I bring my own chilli flakes which I’m conscious as I write this, is a bit strange, but I can’t care too much because the extra spice makes the meal so much better. I share my chilli flakes with Emma and she adds them onto her soup. The dhal is hot to the point it hurts my tongue. After we eat, we decide we both need to get a Diet Coke and use the overpriced vending machine to release one for ourselves. I know if you’re reading this, you’ll be relieved in the knowledge that I have eaten a breakfast and lunch today. 

After working, we go to Saramago for a single pint and we share chips for the table; they are buttery, salty, slightly crispy and one portion isn’t enough so we get another. We sit outside. I’m present but simultaneously distracted; I keep checking the time on my phone because I need to get home for the Newcastle match. A semi-long text comes through from you, talking about dates to come to Glasgow for a night in February, some bits about Newcastle football players, and you tell me that you’ve re-joined David Llloyd. 

I make it home in fifteen minutes, walking under the motorway for sake of speed. When I get through the door, I soon realise the flat has, like all the other flats in the West End, no running water due to a burst pipe. For some reason I prioritise setting up my laptop to watch the football before going to the shops to buy bottled water necessary for drinking, cooking dinner and brushing my teeth this evening. I send you an irritable text about the water situation and the fact I can’t login to Sky Sports – which I regret seconds later and apologise for being stroppy with you. I know you can recognise a short temperedness in me in an instant, maybe because you fall victim to that more than anyone else in my life because of how close we are, which I also know you don’t deserve. I miss the first fifteen minutes of the match because I go and find water; the shelves are empty of big bottles and so I get a few smaller ones and some sparkling water for my thirst, and then a bag of Maltesers justified by the fact we have no running water. 

Home now I chop onions, peel garlic, dice peppers and carrots, throw in kidney beans, spices and tinned tomatoes, fill the kettle with bottled water, add stock, a real multitask as I also keep my eye on the match. I make enough to offer some chilli to Stephen who comes home and looks like the last thing he wants to do is cook, and we watch the rest of the football together. I occasionally pick up my phone to exchange a written commentary with you on the game, short messages and reactions back and forth. 

Newcastle eventually win, I load the dish washer but I can’t turn it on, you text me saying you have a ticket for the second leg of the semi-final at home and one last thing did you see Paul Mescal has been nominated for an Oscar.