Lunch and Heritage in Manchester

I stop in to a pub called The Quadrant while Subash is off at the stadium getting his press pass. I am the only customer at the moment, and I order the "Beef and Ale Pie." This turns out to be giant--more like dinner than lunch--and comes with peas and mashed potatoes and a lot of gravy. 

The woman behind the bar calls me "luv" and "darlin" and makes me feel special. You get the feeling that if you ever had your heart broken you could go to her and have a good cry while she held you to her great aproned bosom and then gave you something hot to drink, and you would sniffle, feeling better.

She comes out to ask "how's your meal, darlin?" And then calls back to the kitchen "she says very good!" 

And it is. Outside it is gray and rainy and the food is warm and comforting. Steam floats up when I break open the meat pie and it feels like I could be in any time.

There is a feeling in America of existing without ancestors. You may know about your great-grandparents but beyond that it fades out as the newly arrived tried to belong in a whole new world, erasing the past. How can you blame them.

Somehow being here, eating comfort food under the watchful eye of this woman, I remember suddenly that my ancestors existed. Not just the more recent stepping onto a boat to take them off into the mist away from all they've ever known, but back and back. Falling in love and dying too young, giving birth and raising families, pressing calloused hands to burning foreheads, hoping this one will be spared.

All of this moving forward, sifted and kneaded into the dough, baked in a pie.