Cheese

My love affair with cheese began when I was too young to know what a love affair was, much less have one. I was a preschooler and, in those days, that there were not very many day nurseries around — or, perhaps more accurately, not many that my parents trusted.

I am the youngest of six children, so I think it is fair to say that, by the time i arrived on the scene, my parents had a good bit of experience under their belts regarding child-rearing.

Since I was not in a day car, and did not have a nanny (an unheard-of concept where we lived), this meant that I was free to roam the three levels of our house with very few restrictions, except for the usual ones regarding sharp objects, climbing on furniture, and drinking poisons. It also meant that I was frequently under my mother’s feet and getting in her way.

I, of course, did not see things in such a light. To my wee mind, I was helpful and a major asset to her efforts to clean house or prepare meals. Okay, to be honest, I was never that great at cleaning, but I considered myself to be an absolute corker when it came to meal preparation. My true delight was being in the kitchen, a fact that, sadly, reflected all too easily and evidently in my adult life, but those childhood kitchen days seemed like absolute halcyon.

I do not know what prompted my mom, an extremely creative woman, to come up with the idea of giving me cheese whenever she needed a break from my helpful ministrations, nor do I recall the first time The Cheese Solution, as it never came to be known since I just made that up right now, I say I do not recall the first time The Cheese Solution occurred. I only know, and will aver to my dying day, that cheese, for me, became as desirable and important as heroin would be to a dope fiend.

There is nothing to bring joy to the soul as cheese.

The brilliance of Mom’s strategy, though, did not just lay in the fact that she thought to give me a slice of cheese, cheddar, by the way, but that she also cut it up into very small pieces. As an adult, I have enough distance and objectivity to be able to think back and recall that the slice, freshly removed from a block kept in the refrigerator, was no more than one inch tall by 2.5 inches wide, and probably only one-fourth of an inch thick. To my childish eyes, though, it was a plank of saffron-colored hundred karat gold. What made it more appealing was when Mom took the time to cut it into little cubes that were about a quarter-inch wide by a half-inch tall, much like a jewelry designer would craft his ingot into spectacular and romantic figures to be worn by and marveled over by the gentry.

Mom took the little pile of golden cheese nuggets and placed them on a small plate, which she then handed to me.

Oh! The rapture that coursed through my wee frame as I clutched my prize tightly to ensure that I did not lose it, and headed out to my selected cheese-eating haven; under the baby grand piano.

The piano sat in the living room, and rather ruled the roost, as it were, with all the other furniture being subject to its placement. From underneath, I had a puppy’s-eye view of the front door and the door to the kitchen. I could easily have swiveled around in order to view the Morris chair that was Dad’s sanctuary when he came home from the office, or to look at the French Provincial legs and upholstery of the matching sofas that faced one another from opposite sides of the room, with a low coffee table between.

I chose, instead, to face the direction I had chosen, as one never knew when a visitor would arrive to have a chat with Mom, and I could watch their feet pass to and fro before Mom headed back into the kitchen to prepare some coffee to sip while they conversed. Or, I could just keep my eyes on the kitchen door to keep track of Mom’s movements, if such surveillance was necessary at the time.

I think, to be completely honest, that my selection regarding which way I faced while under the piano had nothing to do with which view was most entrancing.

Because I only had eyes for cheese.

My little stack of food-for-the-gods was more appealing than anything within my sight-lines, and I cherished each small nugget as if it were, truly, pure gold that I had collected for the assayist.

I had a specific ritual I followed, as well, though I did allow for variations in execution. I carefully picked up the first cheese morsel, thoughtfully examined it from every side, and then…no, I did not pop it into my mouth — I nibbled it as carefully as if I were a mouse.

When I finally got to the end of one wee morsel, I pondered the plate before making my next selection.

I have no idea how long I would sit under the piano, nibbling my cheesy treasures, but it sometimes seems, at least to my adult mind, that I could stay there for hours. It may rightly have been only a few minutes, but they were minutes that were crammed to capacity with the wonder of being a tiny creature in a world of giants, who was feasted royally with the most sumptuous of fares.

My stillness may not have lasted long enough to suit Mother, and I may have emerged far too soon from my haven of bliss, but the time I spent was certainly long enough to fix as firmly as chiseled marble the lasting memories of enjoying the solitude and sumptuous life of a mouse.

And my love for cheese.