Sunday Donuts

Donuts.


A few Sundays ago, we woke up to sunshine for the first time in several days. I really enjoy rainy days, but a few rainy weeks left me feeling isolated and longing for the weather we left in Florida. I don’t know if many of you keep up with the weather patterns of East Tennessee (because that sounds like a fun hobby, right?) but we have had some pretty dangerous flooding in February. There was nearly double the annual rainfall here since January 1^st (usually about 7.5 inches at that point in the year and we had 11+).


But when we saw the sunshine and felt the early signs of spring that morning, and we decided it was going to be a great day. Which starts with donuts. We haven’t gotten donuts in months because we haven’t had the money, so this was an exciting treat!


I haven’t been terribly open about it, but last year our family had another 6-month round of unemployment. I was very vocal before our move to Knoxville about Jason’s job status. He hadn’t worked in a few months, and that is hard for any family. We were fortunate and he found a job that took him away from us right before we left Tallahassee, yada yada yada. “Is this lady a broken record or what?” Well, what I haven’t been as vocal about is that that contract ended in August of 2018 and Jason only went back to work at the end of January of this year. We both felt confused and angry. Embarrassed. Misguided. Stupid… any negative feeling you can have about yourself– we felt it. You may be asking yourself -


HOW COULD IT HAPPEN AGAIN?!?!?


Honestly, I just don’t know. As a woman who rarely has a shortage for words, it is hard to summarize all of the complex feelings and thoughts about only working 10/18 months. The old “bad things happen to good people” line seems fitting. I could also now write a pretty accurate novel about nepotism and old money in Knoxville. Sure, sometimes you blow an interview, but we have also learned that sometimes a company interviews people as a formality, never really intending to hire from outside the company. The truth is, I don’t know why it happened again! Jason is a hardworking, reliable, well-educated man… we started looking for new work months before his contract ended… I just don’t know why it took so long. But what I do know is that my husband now has a great job that doesn’t take him away from us. He likes what is doing, where he get to go, and who he is spending his days with. Please thank whoever you pray to for me, I’m not sure I have them all covered at this point.


Back to the matter at hand… Donuts… Because we had $20 to spare… We loaded up the kids and took them the donut shop when found last summer. We let them each pick two. I like seeing them get excited and debate over what they want. Adaline is adventurous and loves to try new ones – but will always settle for a Boston cream filled. Maggie doesn’t care what she gets, as long as she leaves with more sprinkles than she came in with. And Leo is the kind of guy who wants the same thing every time – vanilla frosted, preferably with sprinkles but he can handle without; much like Jason who only ever wants a fresh apple fritter. Me? I don’t really care as long as there is no jelly in my donut. I am quite the fan of blueberry cake, though…


Leave it to a fat woman to write an emotional post about donuts, right?


But there are all these feelings about them. When I was a little kid, donuts were a big deal. My dad worked nights my entire life, usually getting home just as we were getting out the door to go to school. But, on a lot of Saturdays, when we heard his keys jingle in the door, we knew there was a box of donuts in his hand. He would take the time to go to Frank’s IGA on his way home and pick out six chocolate and six plain donuts for us. They came in a long white box with a crinkly plastic window – the chocolate would get on the plastic as my dad would try to juggle his stuff from work, a gallon of milk, and this long sleeve of donuts. That was coveted chocolate – the goal was to get the donut with the most chocolate AND scrape the window chocolate off before anyone else could. There were smiles, jokes, and Saturday morning cartoons.


I don’t have a lot of super happy memories of childhood; don’t get me wrong, they are there and the ones that I have are precious. But donut Saturdays are a very happy memory.


When I was in high school, I would buy the yearbook staff donuts every few weeks when I was editor. We would have “donut meetings” so we could get up to date on deadlines and section progress – but mostly it was a way for me to feel connected to my friends before school.

In college, I found Malasadas – Hawaii’s heavenly and superior answer to donuts. I always had at least one roommate willing to track down the Leonard’s truck with me if either of us were heartbroken or overly stressed.  


The first Sunday Jason and I found ourselves opting out of, and ultimately leaving, the LDS Church, we got several boxes of donuts and delivered them to our neighbors. We explained that we wanted to be better neighbors, and what better way to start that than with a box of donuts.


Are you seeing a pattern here? As I have become a mother, I love taking my kids to donut shops every few weeks and letting them pick out a donut because it represents such a simple joy – and it is a joy that is so easy to share. I mean, have you EVER met someone who doesn’t like some form of a donut? Can you think of anyone who would turn down the offer of such a delicacy? I truly think the reason we don’t have a higher minimum wage in this country is because employers appease us all with donuts on occasion… “I know 8.25/hour isn’t enough to sustain you AND you will only get enough hours to not need health insurance, but here is a DOOOONNNNNUUUUTTT!!!!” And we happily take the donut. Every time.


I digress, as I so often do…


But man, this second round of unemployment taught us what we are really capable of. It also taught us where our limits are. Our hustle game got stronger. We got creative with entertainment. We were blessed, yet again, by family and friends that saw our needs before we did. We asked for help when it was needed. I got a job at Target through the holidays and kept it because I actually like it. Jason Ubered. Did we survive? Did we come out stronger? Wholeheartedly, YES.


But we couldn’t get donuts.


And donuts are special to my babies. That connection and security I felt when I would hear my dad come in on Saturdays has been passed on to my kids. It’s not even about the donut shop or the money needed to buy them – it was about doing something special that makes them feel secure and loved. The comfort of a routine. Sure, I would make a big breakfast just about every other morning while Jason was home – pancakes, biscuits, kouign-amann from scratch, and the like. But it wasn’t our tradition. And when they would ask for that experience of going to the donut shop to look and pick, we had to say “no.”


It broke me every time. To see their faces sink to our response of “maybe next week” was the hardest part of unemployment.


Joblessness really opened my eyes to what other folks may be living through all the time. It has furthered my commitment to political views. Which are simple - if you are working 40+ hours a week, you shouldn’t have to worry about going to the doctor or being able to pay your bills. I am by no means comparing my inability to get my kids donuts to someone’s inability to pay rent or see a doctor. What I am equating is seeing that look of trust, connection, and security dim in the eyes of your children. It’s a hard thing to watch, and frankly anyone working 40 hours a week shouldn’t have to watch it.


But that Sunday morning, riding to the donut shop with the windows down reminded me that we somehow made it through. Our ends were stretched and met. And as my kids touched the display case, practically drooling, with me actively reminding them people work to keep the glass clean and to stop, my heart was full. They were excited. They felt the security we had been working so hard to provide. My grateful heart began leaking from my eyes. All the worry. All the fear. All the anger… it all melted away when they said, “can we get donut holes, too?” and I could simply say, “yes.”

I could go on for days about the freedom in that “yes.”

I could also probably stop blogging and write a bestselling collection of short stories called “Target Entitlement: A re-tale of rich people behaving badly.” I could write at least a few more paragraphs about how EVERYONE should be able to get their kids a donut every now and then… But I won’t. I just want to paint the picture of a BEAUTIFUL Sunday morning, complete with chirping birds and a sun so bright you had to squint. Of a mom and dad holding hands in a car. Of excited children speculating what the display case would be full of… And a family that felt hope for the first time in a while.


There are a lot of things in this life that I may never understand. A lot of things I’m not smart enough to grasp. But the simplicity of donut shop hope will never be lost on me. As I am emerging from the dark gloom of not knowing what was going to happen to our family, I am reminded that the wisdom gained from job insecurity and financial hardship is shareable. And this is what I want to share with you:

May we all be nice. Be patient. Be kind. To others, because we don’t know when the last time they had a donut was. And to yourself, because you probably deserve one more than you think.