It has taken a multitude of tutorials in happiness, but I have emerged smiling from a swamp of sadness. I probably could have used therapy, but thirty years of marriage to a psychologist and a library of self-help books have kept me afloat. Still, when I have been particularly irrational or anxious, my husband Dave has observed, “So much for all of those self-help books.” He doesn’t understand that the woman he lives with is the self-help-sustained-Lea. He can’t even begin to imagine what Lea-on-her-own would be like.
What a nice change to feel buoyant. I wonder suspiciously (I am, after all, still me), if this is another hormone spike paving the way for a menopausal salvo of gloom. “No! No! No!” chirps my new happy self. “You are older, you’ve gained perspective and perhaps a little wisdom of your own.” Maybe Midwife Menopause has sprung me from my mope-y, uncertain chrysalis and I am reborn.
There have been irretrievable casualties along the way. My memory is shot. I am a list and “message-to-self” junkie. Even with these aids, a thought not immediately transcribed to some objective safe-house – a calendar, the computer, a message machine - runs the high probability of loss to the ether. There are so many words poised, beyond reach, on the tip of my tongue that it is a wonder that their weight doesn’t render me speechless. A trip to the store for spinach may reap three bags of groceries, but no spinach. A friend’s birthday card is returned in the mail marked “insufficient address.” Insufficient? I’d omitted her name and address.
I know I’m not alone in this. It’s practically a ritual of sisterhood among women my age to exchange similar stories, poo-pooing Alzheimers fears, blaming lapses on busy lives and brain-spilling details. As I returned to pick up the groceries I’d left at her station the other day, the cashier at Shaws assured me, “Dearie, you’ve just got too much on your mind.”
One February morning, I invited Doug and Robin, two fellow members of the Conservation Commission, to our house to hash out wording for a land acquisition ordinance. As we sat in the dining room, quietly talking and taking notes, our meeting was interrupted by the jangle of the phone. It was a blasé dispatcher informing me that my scheduled furnace cleaning was in jeopardy due to lack of parking along our snowy street.
Scheduled cleaning?
With the phone receiver wedged between my head and shoulder, I checked the calendar. Yes, “Furnace cleaning” was right there for this date. We’ll skip over my crisis of confidence in realizing that even calendar documentation of appointments was an inadequate prod for my feeble memory. I scurried out into the five-degree day, hat-less, glove-less, and coat-less, to greet the Wilson Fuel man and solve his parking woes.
He sat scowling in his van as I leapt into my car and shifted into reverse, pulling the car back to create space for him to park. I walked over to his window and gestured toward the clearing.
“That’s not gonna do it,” he snarled.
I hugged myself to ward off the cold and the hostile vibes, fluttering helplessly for good measure. The Wilson man climbed out of his vehicle and stood with feet planted unforgivingly, his solid form encased in navy sweats well-marinated in oil. “I’ll shovel more space for you,” I suggested.
.
“It’s not gonna help and if the van gets hit by a passing car, you’re responsible. ”
“Let me try.”
I pictured Doug and Robin nibbling wedges of provolone on Carr’s delectable rosemary crackers before a toasty fire in my dining room. I thrust, lifted and pitched great chunks of snow, all the while interspersing silent, teeth-gritted, name-calling with the satisfying image of my bitter call of complaint to Wilson headquarters about this surly worker.
I stood aside to allow the filthy white van maneuver room, and massaged the ache in my lower back. Inexplicably, a self-help mantra from author Wayne Dyer pried it’s way into my pinched heart. “Be love. Be kind.”
Hmm. Be love. Be kind. Let’s see what I’m made of.
“You must have had a long day,” I offered ingratiatingly. I left out the “that would explain why you’re being such a jerk,” part.
“I didn’t want to come on this job,” griped the Wilson man. “It’s late, but they made me come anyway.”
“Let me make you a cup of tea…” I purred.
“No, no, I’m fine. Listen, I didn’t mean to make you do that shoveling.”
“Oh, that’s all right." [Miss Pollyanna!] "How about chocolate? Surely you won’t pass up chocolate!”
With a laugh, he shook his head, “No, really, I’m fine. It’s just that I worked for twenty-one hours yesterday and all day today. I’m tired.” He held out his hand. “My name’s Theo.”
Melting, melting…both of us softening. Inspired by who knows what playful god, I gave the man a hug.
“I’m going to make you tea and chocolates!” I exclaimed and with springy steps, marched inside to prepare restoratives for my exhausted new friend.
Theo went down to attend to the furnace while I finished the meeting with Doug and Robin. I relished a few Carr’s rosemary crackers myself. Periodically, I ran down to our dark, low-ceilinged, hell-of-a-1700’s-basement to share a laugh and words of commiseration with Theo. As he kneeled on the grimy floor collecting soot from our furnace, he said, “I feel better already. I’m glad that you were in a good mood.”
We parted that night with the greatest congeniality – and I was left with stunning proof that love works. It’s not a cliché. It’s not trite. It’s true. Love is a powerful force and it changes everything.
Now, if I can just remember to apply the lesson...
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
What's in a Picture?
My college photo album is pale slate blue with decorative gold trim, tattered pages and frayed binding. It shows the wear of its thirty years. As Casey and I snuggle by a cozy fire, flipping through this relic of my youth, I picture the neat stacks of albums upstairs in my daughter’s room. With covers of burgundy, floral and forest green, they are as fresh as the faces beaming from their pages. In each shot of kids mugging, hugging and carousing, oversized plastic cups feature prominently. “These are, of course, soda?” I've suggested archly while looking through her pictures.
“Yes, Mom,” she always replies with an eye-rolling smirk.
I wonder aloud if Casey’s albums will bear the stamp of thirty years’ passage as overtly as mine. I ponder the prospect of my daughter at age fifty, lugging them out, the floral and burgundy coloring by then faded in tribute to their years.
Dave clumps into the den with an armload of wood and adds a log to the fire. Embers pop as he wads sheets of newspaper into knots and shoves them under the grate between the heavy black andirons. Fed by new fuel, flames curl, bright and warm, as I turn a page of the album. “Trinity College, spring, 1972” is printed in my neat schoolgirl's hand under a photo collage of a softball game.
I smile at the pictures of my friends and roommates, their young faces so open and relaxed, with no greater agenda than some beers and a game on the quad. I notice a lot of oversized plastic cups around.
“Those cups are, of course, soda. Right, Mom?” says Casey with a grin.
"Of course," I respond with the same eye-roll she'd given me. Then, with the feigned primness of a prairie school marm I add, "But, the drinking age was eighteen."
In the background of one picture, out of focus because he was not the subject of the shot, is Davey Sylvestro. When I took the photo, I’d only recently met him; we were introduced by his older brother, my friend, Sly.
Casey crows at the boys’ long hair and Dave’s smooth upper lip; he didn’t grow his mustache until 1973. “You look so cute Dad! Like an Indian,” she says. I glance at Dave and catch his eye. We both smile. Without too much trouble, I see my nineteen year-old boyfriend.
That makes me think. I wonder if there’s a boy in any of Casey’s pictures, out of focus in the background, barely noticed because he’s not the subject of the shot? She mentions new names all the time: boys met in classes, at hockey games, at meals and at parties. She hasn't emphasized anyone in particular yet...
Hm.
“Sweetie? Could you run up and get your albums? I’d like to take another look.”
“Yes, Mom,” she always replies with an eye-rolling smirk.
I wonder aloud if Casey’s albums will bear the stamp of thirty years’ passage as overtly as mine. I ponder the prospect of my daughter at age fifty, lugging them out, the floral and burgundy coloring by then faded in tribute to their years.
Dave clumps into the den with an armload of wood and adds a log to the fire. Embers pop as he wads sheets of newspaper into knots and shoves them under the grate between the heavy black andirons. Fed by new fuel, flames curl, bright and warm, as I turn a page of the album. “Trinity College, spring, 1972” is printed in my neat schoolgirl's hand under a photo collage of a softball game.
I smile at the pictures of my friends and roommates, their young faces so open and relaxed, with no greater agenda than some beers and a game on the quad. I notice a lot of oversized plastic cups around.
“Those cups are, of course, soda. Right, Mom?” says Casey with a grin.
"Of course," I respond with the same eye-roll she'd given me. Then, with the feigned primness of a prairie school marm I add, "But, the drinking age was eighteen."
In the background of one picture, out of focus because he was not the subject of the shot, is Davey Sylvestro. When I took the photo, I’d only recently met him; we were introduced by his older brother, my friend, Sly.
Casey crows at the boys’ long hair and Dave’s smooth upper lip; he didn’t grow his mustache until 1973. “You look so cute Dad! Like an Indian,” she says. I glance at Dave and catch his eye. We both smile. Without too much trouble, I see my nineteen year-old boyfriend.
That makes me think. I wonder if there’s a boy in any of Casey’s pictures, out of focus in the background, barely noticed because he’s not the subject of the shot? She mentions new names all the time: boys met in classes, at hockey games, at meals and at parties. She hasn't emphasized anyone in particular yet...
Hm.
“Sweetie? Could you run up and get your albums? I’d like to take another look.”
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Dressed and Ready to Go
The kitchen smells of minced garlic toasting in olive oil on the stove. I chop the artichoke stems very fine. From the garden, I salvaged a few sage leaves that survived the early frost and they are crisping in the oil as well. I know what Cam would say if I phoned her. I can easily hear her voice.
“Lea! How’re you doin’?”
“Great! I’m making stuffed artichokes.”
“No kiddin’. What’re you putting in the filling?”
“I’ve got some sage from the garden, toasted garlic and breadcrumbs.”
“Oooooo. I always put in a bit of salt and pepper, as well.”
“Yep. I’ve added them along with the stems.”
When Cam talks about food, it’s as if she could taste it. The words roll languorously about on her tongue, zesty as lemon, smoky as slow-cooked sauce. She relishes each ingredient, the aromas, and the textures. No surprise, as much of her life was spent in the kitchen, cooking for her parents, her brothers, and for all of us.
I come close to reaching for the telephone, but Cam won’t be there to answer; she passed away last week.
She was ninety-two and hadn’t been cooking much lately. Over the past year, her forgetfulness led to smoke alarms a few times too many. Sausages browned to black on the stove as she went to the bathroom; hamburger charred when she was drawn into a TV show. Like Cam, her neighbors at Heritage Village were elderly, most in their eighties. Much as they loved her, they were frustrated about standing in the cold or rain while awaiting the firemen’s “All clear.” It was not just inconvenient; they were worried - about her as well as themselves.
At Heritage Village, the policy is three strikes and you’re out. Luckily, not really out, but forbidden to use the stove. She certainly didn’t cook with as much enthusiasm as she used to anyway; she was tired. But still, she missed the smells and fresh food.
When Cam joined us for Christmas last year, she made up for lost cooking time; a full day was spent preparing homemade lasagna and squid. Dave and his aunty rolled mounds of dough thin, then sliced them into strips. Casey, Tucker and I helped layer the pasta with creamy ricotta cheese, sautéed vegetables and rich tomato sauce. Stuffing the squid, or porkies, as Cam called them, was a messy business, leaving her crooked fingers caked with stuffing and her apron dusted with flour. Christmas carols played on the stereo, the same songs Cam listened to when her brothers were at war, the songs we’d heard as children, and that Tucker and Casey had grown up singing. Sometimes Cam and Dave would swing into a dance or croon along with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.
Cam’s greatest pleasure, other than time spent with family, was playing Bingo. Whenever Dave called his aunt, his first question was whether she’d won at Bingo that week. If she answered in the negative, he’d tease her about dishonoring the family name. “You dingweed!” he’d say, and she would laugh like a school girl. She got a kick out of the nickname; maybe the silliness appealed, or perhaps its youthful ring. Whatever the reason, Cam took teasing well. She could always laugh at herself.
Cam worried constantly about family members, from the time that all three brothers served overseas during World War II, to the time that she quit her job to take care of her parents. Then Uncle Jack got cancer, and Dave’s father, Tony, had a stroke. Often, therefore, her worries were well-founded. But she also worried unnecessarily if Dave didn’t call every day, or if she couldn’t find a phone number, or bill. Dave would mimic Cam’s wail, feed it right back to her, when she moaned about some small insignificance. And she got the joke; her groaning would give way to laughter.
Timmy the van driver and Cam’s friend, Theresa, found her. They had come to pick her up for Bingo, just like always. Usually, Cam was waiting outside when the van pulled up. She’d be wearing a beige knit jacket and matching pants; her white hair would be neatly coiffed following her weekly trip to the hairdresser. She’d have her bulky handbag clutched to her body with both hands. This time, Cam wasn’t out front so Timmy was anxious. She waited a bit, then decided to go up to Cam’s apartment. Theresa agreed to accompany her, just in case.
They found her on the bedroom floor, dressed and ready to go.
Dressed and ready to go. That describes Cam pretty well. She relished life in the same way she relished mussels in garlic and wine, scraping each shell clean and sopping up the juice with a nice chunk of fresh bread. She’d stay up until 1:00 am to watch her great-nephews, Trevor and Christopher, perform. Well into her eighties, she once went out on a boat night-shrimping in Florida with her niece, Peggy, and her beloved, Paul. It was dark on the water and the chill numbed their hands, but Cam never complained. In fact, when Peggy asked how she was doing, she laughed with delight and said, “I’m enjoying myself!”
When Peggy’s daughter, Jenny, gave birth to a little girl, Cam found a new love. Now four years old, Victoria is cute, smart, and funny, and her parents are conscientious about keeping Cam up-to-date with photographs.
Cam kept Dave company during his daily commute from work. He’d call her as he sat in traffic on the Merritt Parkway and they’d chat about his day, about her latest Bingo game, about Victoria’s most recent accomplishment. Cam told him when Cousin Jackie fell ill, and when Johnny Talbot called. She told him when Jenny’s sister, Lisa, started her own business as a personal chef. “Isn’t that somethin’?” said Cam. But she never wanted to impose, “I won’t take any more of your time….” she'd say, and Dave had to beg her, “Don’t hang up! Don’t hang up!”
As I run cold water into the pot, I wish I could call her. I know Cam would love these artichokes. She would have eaten every leaf with gusto, starting close to the pricker-sharp point, then working her teeth to the stem end.
Loving every last morsel.
“Lea! How’re you doin’?”
“Great! I’m making stuffed artichokes.”
“No kiddin’. What’re you putting in the filling?”
“I’ve got some sage from the garden, toasted garlic and breadcrumbs.”
“Oooooo. I always put in a bit of salt and pepper, as well.”
“Yep. I’ve added them along with the stems.”
When Cam talks about food, it’s as if she could taste it. The words roll languorously about on her tongue, zesty as lemon, smoky as slow-cooked sauce. She relishes each ingredient, the aromas, and the textures. No surprise, as much of her life was spent in the kitchen, cooking for her parents, her brothers, and for all of us.
I come close to reaching for the telephone, but Cam won’t be there to answer; she passed away last week.
She was ninety-two and hadn’t been cooking much lately. Over the past year, her forgetfulness led to smoke alarms a few times too many. Sausages browned to black on the stove as she went to the bathroom; hamburger charred when she was drawn into a TV show. Like Cam, her neighbors at Heritage Village were elderly, most in their eighties. Much as they loved her, they were frustrated about standing in the cold or rain while awaiting the firemen’s “All clear.” It was not just inconvenient; they were worried - about her as well as themselves.
At Heritage Village, the policy is three strikes and you’re out. Luckily, not really out, but forbidden to use the stove. She certainly didn’t cook with as much enthusiasm as she used to anyway; she was tired. But still, she missed the smells and fresh food.
When Cam joined us for Christmas last year, she made up for lost cooking time; a full day was spent preparing homemade lasagna and squid. Dave and his aunty rolled mounds of dough thin, then sliced them into strips. Casey, Tucker and I helped layer the pasta with creamy ricotta cheese, sautéed vegetables and rich tomato sauce. Stuffing the squid, or porkies, as Cam called them, was a messy business, leaving her crooked fingers caked with stuffing and her apron dusted with flour. Christmas carols played on the stereo, the same songs Cam listened to when her brothers were at war, the songs we’d heard as children, and that Tucker and Casey had grown up singing. Sometimes Cam and Dave would swing into a dance or croon along with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.
Cam’s greatest pleasure, other than time spent with family, was playing Bingo. Whenever Dave called his aunt, his first question was whether she’d won at Bingo that week. If she answered in the negative, he’d tease her about dishonoring the family name. “You dingweed!” he’d say, and she would laugh like a school girl. She got a kick out of the nickname; maybe the silliness appealed, or perhaps its youthful ring. Whatever the reason, Cam took teasing well. She could always laugh at herself.
Cam worried constantly about family members, from the time that all three brothers served overseas during World War II, to the time that she quit her job to take care of her parents. Then Uncle Jack got cancer, and Dave’s father, Tony, had a stroke. Often, therefore, her worries were well-founded. But she also worried unnecessarily if Dave didn’t call every day, or if she couldn’t find a phone number, or bill. Dave would mimic Cam’s wail, feed it right back to her, when she moaned about some small insignificance. And she got the joke; her groaning would give way to laughter.
Timmy the van driver and Cam’s friend, Theresa, found her. They had come to pick her up for Bingo, just like always. Usually, Cam was waiting outside when the van pulled up. She’d be wearing a beige knit jacket and matching pants; her white hair would be neatly coiffed following her weekly trip to the hairdresser. She’d have her bulky handbag clutched to her body with both hands. This time, Cam wasn’t out front so Timmy was anxious. She waited a bit, then decided to go up to Cam’s apartment. Theresa agreed to accompany her, just in case.
They found her on the bedroom floor, dressed and ready to go.
Dressed and ready to go. That describes Cam pretty well. She relished life in the same way she relished mussels in garlic and wine, scraping each shell clean and sopping up the juice with a nice chunk of fresh bread. She’d stay up until 1:00 am to watch her great-nephews, Trevor and Christopher, perform. Well into her eighties, she once went out on a boat night-shrimping in Florida with her niece, Peggy, and her beloved, Paul. It was dark on the water and the chill numbed their hands, but Cam never complained. In fact, when Peggy asked how she was doing, she laughed with delight and said, “I’m enjoying myself!”
When Peggy’s daughter, Jenny, gave birth to a little girl, Cam found a new love. Now four years old, Victoria is cute, smart, and funny, and her parents are conscientious about keeping Cam up-to-date with photographs.
Cam kept Dave company during his daily commute from work. He’d call her as he sat in traffic on the Merritt Parkway and they’d chat about his day, about her latest Bingo game, about Victoria’s most recent accomplishment. Cam told him when Cousin Jackie fell ill, and when Johnny Talbot called. She told him when Jenny’s sister, Lisa, started her own business as a personal chef. “Isn’t that somethin’?” said Cam. But she never wanted to impose, “I won’t take any more of your time….” she'd say, and Dave had to beg her, “Don’t hang up! Don’t hang up!”
As I run cold water into the pot, I wish I could call her. I know Cam would love these artichokes. She would have eaten every leaf with gusto, starting close to the pricker-sharp point, then working her teeth to the stem end.
Loving every last morsel.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Christmas House
Dave and I have bustled all week to prepare for our Christmas party. Brush in hand, I’ve dabbed Chelsea Blue paint on doors and sills that need touch-ups. Cupboards are scrubbed clean; furniture is lemon polish fragrant; potpourris are revitalized with cinnamon scent. Dry floors, massaged with oil, are a rich red-brown. I imagine the house stretching and waking, as rapturously pleased with itself as our cat Raven under a soothing caress.
We began decorating by hauling boxes and bulky plastic bags from the attic and crawlspace, every hutch and window seat yielding Santas, snowmen, teddy bears, and garlands. As I unwrap the tissue protecting each item, I remember its place in Christmases past. When Tucker and Casey were little, they helped craft the papier mache carollers. The miniature wooden village first appeared under my parents’ tree in the fifties. The velveteen Santa has been with us since Tucker was one, a gift from his grandparents on his first Christmas in 1980. Little hands, growing hands, aging hands have held and admired each memento.
After days of puttering, near every surface in the house boasts a vignette: a woodland village, nativity or Father Christmas. Still, something is missing. Greens.
Casey used to decorate the house with holly and evergreens, but she’s missed the party for the past few years since she left for college. Last week I was saddened by her blithe departure the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I yearned for the days when she lived at home, when she reveled in creating arrangements of holly, filling jars with cranberries, and hanging ornaments. But she was all asparkle at the thought of returning to school as she drove into the dusk, saying, “I’ll be back in three weeks for Christmas!”
An hour later she phoned from a rest stop on the interstate. “My headlights died! I do NOT believe this!” The hoped-for quick fix from Triple A did not pan out and we received another, more subdued, call. “Mom, would you and Dad mind retrieving the car from the rest stop to bring it home for repairs? I’ve called my roommate and she’s going to pick me up and take me the rest of the way to school.” And then Casey spluttered and sniffled on her end of the line. “The reason I was so cheery when I said good-bye was because I planned to surprise you by coming home to help with the party. And now I can’t because I won’t have a car!” Dear girl! It meant so much that she wanted to come.
So I inherited her job of collecting and distributing the greens. Yesterday, with a basket over my arm and shears in hand, I circled the yard, a snowy expanse marred only by deer tracks trailing from the woods to the bird feeders. What a glorious day to be browsing through holly and winterberries, green and crimson against naked limbs and white snow.
Laden with clippings, I returned to the house and strolled about adding a sprig of pine here, a branch of berries there. Shaded by a bit of feathery fir, the figures on the mantels appeared to relax and brighten. White wooden swans glided gracefully once provided a pool of pine. Even great-grandfather Francis’s somber face seemed almost jovial once holly boughs crowned the frame of his portrait.
Dave returned from Home Depot with arms full of pointsettias. We arranged the scarlet flowers around the victorian carollers singing amid cotton snow in the front hall fireplace. Candles graced tables, mantels and sconces. All that was lacking was the final touch of a match to bring the rooms flickering to life. In still semi-darkness, tiny flames dancing white and blue at the core, seem a visible glimmer of the spirit of a house. How much more so when they lend their glow to a holiday party.
This house has hosted over two hundred and twenty Christmases, but we held our first party here five years ago. Certain elements have remained constant: Dave wears jeans, an oxford shirt and Christmas tie; I greet friends in a flowing dress. Dave brews beer and smokes fish; I shop, bake, mix dips and decorate. The kids’ papier mache carollers sing in the front fireplace; Tucker’s velveteen Santa sits on the hutch in the living room.
But of course, some things change. Tucker and Casey are away at school. Where Casey and her friends Lindsay, Jess and Devlin once passed hors-d’oeuvres and washed dishes, now Lindsay’s little sister, Kara, and her friends help out. They are in the kitchen now, circling the poached salmon with lemon slices, filling bowls with nuts, and garnishing dips with dill and basil. Kara is a senior, so she’ll be gone next year. We’re here, but the kids grow up.
As our friends arrive, they set offerings of lacy cookies, brownies, and bisques among the cheese boards, crudite, crackers and platters of fish already arrayed on the dining room table. Pat inches aside a plate or two to make room for a thick yellow zabaglione in a cut crystal bowl. Michelle places her spinach dip in its cradle of pumpernickel bread on the sideboard. Barb brings a pyramid of zucchini squares. To me, it feels like the house celebrates with us as it glows with candlelight, the rooms echoing with hymns sung by the Westminster Choir.
My eyes well briefly with tears while I think of both the blessings and transitions of this night. My Dave is here with me, chatting with guests. Kara takes overcoats, just as Casey used to do. Hugs and laughter and love linger with me in the hall even as new arrivals head to the living room for a home brew.
A hooked rug I just completed lies on the floor in the corner. It features Santa against a midnight blue background. I imagine an unborn little one saying of it some day, “My grandmother made it thirty years ago.” I picture an older Casey arranging the alpine village on a spray of evergreen, perhaps preparing for a party of her own. And I allow myself a wonderful thought, that those future parties might still be here, in this house that delights to hold them.
We began decorating by hauling boxes and bulky plastic bags from the attic and crawlspace, every hutch and window seat yielding Santas, snowmen, teddy bears, and garlands. As I unwrap the tissue protecting each item, I remember its place in Christmases past. When Tucker and Casey were little, they helped craft the papier mache carollers. The miniature wooden village first appeared under my parents’ tree in the fifties. The velveteen Santa has been with us since Tucker was one, a gift from his grandparents on his first Christmas in 1980. Little hands, growing hands, aging hands have held and admired each memento.
After days of puttering, near every surface in the house boasts a vignette: a woodland village, nativity or Father Christmas. Still, something is missing. Greens.
Casey used to decorate the house with holly and evergreens, but she’s missed the party for the past few years since she left for college. Last week I was saddened by her blithe departure the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I yearned for the days when she lived at home, when she reveled in creating arrangements of holly, filling jars with cranberries, and hanging ornaments. But she was all asparkle at the thought of returning to school as she drove into the dusk, saying, “I’ll be back in three weeks for Christmas!”
An hour later she phoned from a rest stop on the interstate. “My headlights died! I do NOT believe this!” The hoped-for quick fix from Triple A did not pan out and we received another, more subdued, call. “Mom, would you and Dad mind retrieving the car from the rest stop to bring it home for repairs? I’ve called my roommate and she’s going to pick me up and take me the rest of the way to school.” And then Casey spluttered and sniffled on her end of the line. “The reason I was so cheery when I said good-bye was because I planned to surprise you by coming home to help with the party. And now I can’t because I won’t have a car!” Dear girl! It meant so much that she wanted to come.
So I inherited her job of collecting and distributing the greens. Yesterday, with a basket over my arm and shears in hand, I circled the yard, a snowy expanse marred only by deer tracks trailing from the woods to the bird feeders. What a glorious day to be browsing through holly and winterberries, green and crimson against naked limbs and white snow.
Laden with clippings, I returned to the house and strolled about adding a sprig of pine here, a branch of berries there. Shaded by a bit of feathery fir, the figures on the mantels appeared to relax and brighten. White wooden swans glided gracefully once provided a pool of pine. Even great-grandfather Francis’s somber face seemed almost jovial once holly boughs crowned the frame of his portrait.
Dave returned from Home Depot with arms full of pointsettias. We arranged the scarlet flowers around the victorian carollers singing amid cotton snow in the front hall fireplace. Candles graced tables, mantels and sconces. All that was lacking was the final touch of a match to bring the rooms flickering to life. In still semi-darkness, tiny flames dancing white and blue at the core, seem a visible glimmer of the spirit of a house. How much more so when they lend their glow to a holiday party.
This house has hosted over two hundred and twenty Christmases, but we held our first party here five years ago. Certain elements have remained constant: Dave wears jeans, an oxford shirt and Christmas tie; I greet friends in a flowing dress. Dave brews beer and smokes fish; I shop, bake, mix dips and decorate. The kids’ papier mache carollers sing in the front fireplace; Tucker’s velveteen Santa sits on the hutch in the living room.
But of course, some things change. Tucker and Casey are away at school. Where Casey and her friends Lindsay, Jess and Devlin once passed hors-d’oeuvres and washed dishes, now Lindsay’s little sister, Kara, and her friends help out. They are in the kitchen now, circling the poached salmon with lemon slices, filling bowls with nuts, and garnishing dips with dill and basil. Kara is a senior, so she’ll be gone next year. We’re here, but the kids grow up.
As our friends arrive, they set offerings of lacy cookies, brownies, and bisques among the cheese boards, crudite, crackers and platters of fish already arrayed on the dining room table. Pat inches aside a plate or two to make room for a thick yellow zabaglione in a cut crystal bowl. Michelle places her spinach dip in its cradle of pumpernickel bread on the sideboard. Barb brings a pyramid of zucchini squares. To me, it feels like the house celebrates with us as it glows with candlelight, the rooms echoing with hymns sung by the Westminster Choir.
My eyes well briefly with tears while I think of both the blessings and transitions of this night. My Dave is here with me, chatting with guests. Kara takes overcoats, just as Casey used to do. Hugs and laughter and love linger with me in the hall even as new arrivals head to the living room for a home brew.
A hooked rug I just completed lies on the floor in the corner. It features Santa against a midnight blue background. I imagine an unborn little one saying of it some day, “My grandmother made it thirty years ago.” I picture an older Casey arranging the alpine village on a spray of evergreen, perhaps preparing for a party of her own. And I allow myself a wonderful thought, that those future parties might still be here, in this house that delights to hold them.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Spirit Visits
At night when the murmur of beloved voices has whispered to silence, I sometimes sit musing in the near dark by a fire quieted to embers glowing red. Uneven floorboards, oak and chestnut, smoothed by centuries’ footfalls, speak to generations of living in our old house. As I read David McCullough’s book, John Adams, immersed in the founder’s life and ideals, I can’t help but wonder who slept here. Not in terms of celebrity, necessarily, but as I contemplate the span of American history witnessed and celebrated in these familiar rooms, I long to know the stories. I find comfort, for some reason, in thinking about those who lived before us. They weathered their own storms of personal or global making. Now on the other side, they know all the answers.
Intent on conjuring the shadows of the mothers who’ve gone before me, I imagine an aproned woman, flushed and awkward as she leans to tend a pot on the fire, striving to keep her heavy skirts from the flames. With an exhausted smile, she ladles hot stew for a pale young man after his day of labor. Where did she find the energy to enjoy that food herself after tending to family, chores and animals?
Why do we never see her?
The young man has made himself known. He is thin and bearded and has set the hair on Dave’s neck up straight when glimpsed by the fire. Our neighbor, Jim, sheds inexplicable tears while sitting in this room. His mother is a psychic, and when he sought an explanation, she said she'd “seen” a family in mourning when last she visited us. A young man, thin and bearded, was laid out for a wake. He bore a resemblance to Jim himself, as a matter of fact. Maybe there is a connection.
When our daughter, Casey, was little, she reported sightings of this spectral visitor peering at her from the doorway when she lay in her bed. For years we dismissed these tales as childish fantasy.
While the previous residents remain here, I have yet to perceive them. Friends who are more sensitive than I marvel at the ghostly stirrings. “You don’t feel anything? My god, there’s all kinds of activity!”
We tenants, past and present, have disagreed, periodically, as to whether lights should be on or off. More than once, Dave has returned upstairs in the morning, a bit wild-eyed, with the news that our ghostly friends had been about during the night. Lights absolutely extinguished at bedtime have been on when he went down for breakfast. There’s no pattern to the lamps chosen, so it’s not faulty wiring.
One day, after Dave seemed particularly agitated by this feisty fiddling with switches, I waited until the kids left for school and Dave headed to work. Standing in the front hallway, I respectfully called to those within hearing. I thanked them for passing the house on to us. I told them how much we loved it. And I requested that they leave the switches be, and restrict appearances around my little ones and their anxious father.
It appears they listened, these eternal homeowners, and for the most part, they keep a low profile.
I let them know that there are times I’m not ready to meet them, when even the thought of a filmy form at the foyer window leaves me gasping. But on other occasions at the flickering fireside, my stool pulled as close to the dancing light as I dare, I long for a visit. I close my eyes and wrap about me the beeswax-scented, pewtered past, and seek the woman who once worked at this hearth.
Intent on conjuring the shadows of the mothers who’ve gone before me, I imagine an aproned woman, flushed and awkward as she leans to tend a pot on the fire, striving to keep her heavy skirts from the flames. With an exhausted smile, she ladles hot stew for a pale young man after his day of labor. Where did she find the energy to enjoy that food herself after tending to family, chores and animals?
Why do we never see her?
The young man has made himself known. He is thin and bearded and has set the hair on Dave’s neck up straight when glimpsed by the fire. Our neighbor, Jim, sheds inexplicable tears while sitting in this room. His mother is a psychic, and when he sought an explanation, she said she'd “seen” a family in mourning when last she visited us. A young man, thin and bearded, was laid out for a wake. He bore a resemblance to Jim himself, as a matter of fact. Maybe there is a connection.
When our daughter, Casey, was little, she reported sightings of this spectral visitor peering at her from the doorway when she lay in her bed. For years we dismissed these tales as childish fantasy.
While the previous residents remain here, I have yet to perceive them. Friends who are more sensitive than I marvel at the ghostly stirrings. “You don’t feel anything? My god, there’s all kinds of activity!”
We tenants, past and present, have disagreed, periodically, as to whether lights should be on or off. More than once, Dave has returned upstairs in the morning, a bit wild-eyed, with the news that our ghostly friends had been about during the night. Lights absolutely extinguished at bedtime have been on when he went down for breakfast. There’s no pattern to the lamps chosen, so it’s not faulty wiring.
One day, after Dave seemed particularly agitated by this feisty fiddling with switches, I waited until the kids left for school and Dave headed to work. Standing in the front hallway, I respectfully called to those within hearing. I thanked them for passing the house on to us. I told them how much we loved it. And I requested that they leave the switches be, and restrict appearances around my little ones and their anxious father.
It appears they listened, these eternal homeowners, and for the most part, they keep a low profile.
I let them know that there are times I’m not ready to meet them, when even the thought of a filmy form at the foyer window leaves me gasping. But on other occasions at the flickering fireside, my stool pulled as close to the dancing light as I dare, I long for a visit. I close my eyes and wrap about me the beeswax-scented, pewtered past, and seek the woman who once worked at this hearth.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Election Day
It is Election Day and it feels like Christmas.
I awaken to the reflected colors of yellow leaves and a brazenly scarlet Japanese maple, as garish as a lipstick-red kiss. Light emanates through the window as the sun rises behind the trees. It is Election Day. Thank God. The Bush years are almost behind us.
Dave comes into the bedroom, already dressed for work. His tie is a swirl of red, white and blue flags. We grin at each other and he kisses me good-bye. “I can’t wait to vote,” he said. “It feels great to be so excited.”
After Dave leaves, I hop up and sing “America the Beautiful” as I pull off the comforter and shake the pillows out of their cases. “Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain.” Tobama, our tiger cat, twists about the tumble of sheets crumpled on the floor as I snap out a fresh one and slip it over the bed corners. “For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain…”
By the time Tucker and Casey were toddlers, they knew all the words to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and “America the Beautiful.” Their reedy voices warbled of liberty and brotherhood, unfazed by tricky high notes, as they built to a boisterous crescendo, more for the joy of sanctioned yelling, perhaps, than for the potent meaning of the song. I can’t help but smile in remembering them belting, “America! America! God shed his grace on thee! And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!”
Brotherhood. From sea to shining sea.
The phone rings. It is Casey, now twenty-five years old and breathless as she strides to work in New York. “Omigod, Mom. You should see the lines! Everyone is out waiting to vote!”
Casey is registered in Easton so she sent in her absentee ballot a month ago. “I wish I could vote today,” she says. “I want to be part of this. You should see all the people!”
“You are part of it; you voted. I was just thinking about you and your brother singing 'My Country ‘Tis of Thee' when you were kids. Do you remember the words?”
“Of course I do!” And as she walks, she sings out loud, “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty! Of thee I sing…” Today is Election Day and a sense of pride in country wells forth. “Let freedom ring!” Casey finishes up and giggles. “You see? I still know it. All right, I’ve arrived at work. I’ll check in later.”
“Okay. Bye Sweetie. Love you.”
The top sheet drifts onto the bed and I smooth it flat. I want to share this day. I call Mom and Dad and then my sisters, Rita and Francie. “Happy Election Day!” I crow. I’ve never done this before. Who calls to wish people “Happy Election Day” as if it were a holiday? But so much rests on this vote. With the past eight years as backdrop, my sense of the fragility of democracy - the novel, noble concept of a government by, and for, the people – has heightened. My sisters aren’t home, so I leave a message. Mom and Dad are getting ready for their election night party. Dad says, “I’ll be in great despair if this doesn’t go our way.”
“It will, Dad. Think of what the country has been through for the past eight years. Today will go well.” We sign off with promises to touch base during the evening.
I call Tucker and we wish each other a Happy Election Day. “There have already been some glitches up here,” he says. “They didn’t have me listed.”
“What? You’re kidding. How could that be?”
“I don’t know, but luckily I’d brought a registration card just in case there was any confusion with my change of address. The guy checking me in said they’d had about a hundred similar problems. And this was early.”
“Omigod.”
“I know. But it’s going to be okay, Mom. It’s going to go well.”
We say good-bye and I turn to rummaging through my underwear drawer in search of my flag pin, but can’t find it. A white turtleneck and a red and blue scarf will do the trick. Today, wearing patriotic colors feels right. “Oh beautiful for spacious skies…” begins another loop through my mind and I hum as I grab my purse and make sure my license is in my wallet. Of course it is. Where else would it be?
I am stuck on the first verse of “America,” so I decide to check Google for the lyrics. I type, “What are the words to ‘America the Beautiful’?” The site opens with a graphic of the flag waving above the White House. A tinny rendering of the melody issues from my MacBook. I hadn’t expected the music and tears spring to my eyes. What’s that all about? This is an emotional day, even more than I realized, I guess.
I scan the lyrics; the song is longer than I’d thought. Some of the words seem dated. Others pertain almost eerily to current events: “America! America! God shed his grace on thee ‘til selfish gain no longer stain the banner of the free.”
Blowing kisses to the cats, I lock the door and head out to the car. An Obama sticker is on my rear bumper, an Obama yard sign posted in front of the rhododendron bush by the road. They remind me to take the pins off my purse; no campaign paraphernalia allowed within, what, 75 feet of the voting booths?
On the radio, soundbytes of McCain and Obama play over “America the Beautiful.” I hum along quietly as I drive under spacious skies to the elementary school to cast my vote.
I awaken to the reflected colors of yellow leaves and a brazenly scarlet Japanese maple, as garish as a lipstick-red kiss. Light emanates through the window as the sun rises behind the trees. It is Election Day. Thank God. The Bush years are almost behind us.
Dave comes into the bedroom, already dressed for work. His tie is a swirl of red, white and blue flags. We grin at each other and he kisses me good-bye. “I can’t wait to vote,” he said. “It feels great to be so excited.”
After Dave leaves, I hop up and sing “America the Beautiful” as I pull off the comforter and shake the pillows out of their cases. “Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain.” Tobama, our tiger cat, twists about the tumble of sheets crumpled on the floor as I snap out a fresh one and slip it over the bed corners. “For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain…”
By the time Tucker and Casey were toddlers, they knew all the words to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and “America the Beautiful.” Their reedy voices warbled of liberty and brotherhood, unfazed by tricky high notes, as they built to a boisterous crescendo, more for the joy of sanctioned yelling, perhaps, than for the potent meaning of the song. I can’t help but smile in remembering them belting, “America! America! God shed his grace on thee! And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!”
Brotherhood. From sea to shining sea.
The phone rings. It is Casey, now twenty-five years old and breathless as she strides to work in New York. “Omigod, Mom. You should see the lines! Everyone is out waiting to vote!”
Casey is registered in Easton so she sent in her absentee ballot a month ago. “I wish I could vote today,” she says. “I want to be part of this. You should see all the people!”
“You are part of it; you voted. I was just thinking about you and your brother singing 'My Country ‘Tis of Thee' when you were kids. Do you remember the words?”
“Of course I do!” And as she walks, she sings out loud, “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty! Of thee I sing…” Today is Election Day and a sense of pride in country wells forth. “Let freedom ring!” Casey finishes up and giggles. “You see? I still know it. All right, I’ve arrived at work. I’ll check in later.”
“Okay. Bye Sweetie. Love you.”
The top sheet drifts onto the bed and I smooth it flat. I want to share this day. I call Mom and Dad and then my sisters, Rita and Francie. “Happy Election Day!” I crow. I’ve never done this before. Who calls to wish people “Happy Election Day” as if it were a holiday? But so much rests on this vote. With the past eight years as backdrop, my sense of the fragility of democracy - the novel, noble concept of a government by, and for, the people – has heightened. My sisters aren’t home, so I leave a message. Mom and Dad are getting ready for their election night party. Dad says, “I’ll be in great despair if this doesn’t go our way.”
“It will, Dad. Think of what the country has been through for the past eight years. Today will go well.” We sign off with promises to touch base during the evening.
I call Tucker and we wish each other a Happy Election Day. “There have already been some glitches up here,” he says. “They didn’t have me listed.”
“What? You’re kidding. How could that be?”
“I don’t know, but luckily I’d brought a registration card just in case there was any confusion with my change of address. The guy checking me in said they’d had about a hundred similar problems. And this was early.”
“Omigod.”
“I know. But it’s going to be okay, Mom. It’s going to go well.”
We say good-bye and I turn to rummaging through my underwear drawer in search of my flag pin, but can’t find it. A white turtleneck and a red and blue scarf will do the trick. Today, wearing patriotic colors feels right. “Oh beautiful for spacious skies…” begins another loop through my mind and I hum as I grab my purse and make sure my license is in my wallet. Of course it is. Where else would it be?
I am stuck on the first verse of “America,” so I decide to check Google for the lyrics. I type, “What are the words to ‘America the Beautiful’?” The site opens with a graphic of the flag waving above the White House. A tinny rendering of the melody issues from my MacBook. I hadn’t expected the music and tears spring to my eyes. What’s that all about? This is an emotional day, even more than I realized, I guess.
I scan the lyrics; the song is longer than I’d thought. Some of the words seem dated. Others pertain almost eerily to current events: “America! America! God shed his grace on thee ‘til selfish gain no longer stain the banner of the free.”
Blowing kisses to the cats, I lock the door and head out to the car. An Obama sticker is on my rear bumper, an Obama yard sign posted in front of the rhododendron bush by the road. They remind me to take the pins off my purse; no campaign paraphernalia allowed within, what, 75 feet of the voting booths?
On the radio, soundbytes of McCain and Obama play over “America the Beautiful.” I hum along quietly as I drive under spacious skies to the elementary school to cast my vote.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Remnants
As I prepare to leave for work, I breeze through the house, this lovely shell, barely aware of my surroundings. So at times, I reflect, Mom was right. While I see the painting that once hung in my grandmother’s house, it doesn’t register as more than a backdrop. Yes, I know that the drawing Casey drew in art last week is posted on the fridge, but it’s barely a blur, as I rush to the kitchen to pour a glass of orange juice and toast a Poptart.
The doorstop from Mom’s childhood room in St. Louis is displayed on the dining room mantel and Dad’s red chest, his toybox of sixty-five years ago, holds sweaters at the foot of my bed. Uncle Jack’s mess kit, Ama’s lap desk, and even Tucker’s cast-off sneakers, are remnants of lives and places precious to me that have come to rest in this house. When I slow down to notice, each one tells a story…
* * * *
As charred and crusty as it is, Uncle Jack’s World War II field mess kit is ingenious. Two oval metal trays with deep sides form the top and bottom, one partitioned to better organize the meal, the other converting easily into a saucepan. The band holding the two halves in repose swings up and out to form a handle. As Aunty Cam sorted through decades of keepsakes in preparation for moving, she discovered the mess kit and gave it to us.
Dave’s Uncle Jack died four years ago of colon cancer, too young, and unnecessarily, at age seventy-six. Despite his persistent and accurate reporting of symptoms to his doctors, their tests failed to detect the lethal tumor. “It was hidden beyond reach of the scope. We’re sorry....”
Like his brothers, Tony and Phil, Jack served in the army in Italy during the forties. He was an ambulance driver, charged with retrieving bodies as much as transporting the wounded. As he hunched by a campfire after a day’s work, warming Spam and beans neatly partitioned in his aluminum tray, was he haunted by visions of the limp-limbed corpses he’d hoisted into his ambulance, the sons and brothers who would not return home?
While on leave, he visited his relatives in Caserta and fell in love with his first cousin, Josephina. But even as a soldier, an ocean away from home, Jack answered to his mother, Lucia. Mama would not tolerate romance with a first cousin and demanded an end to the courtship.
I remember sitting at the table in Cam’s kitchen when I first heard this tale. Garlic toasted in fruity olive oil on the stove while Cam squeezed fresh lemon juice onto the salad. Cam explained, “It would have been one thing if the cousins had been born of two sisters, but they were of brothers. Too close! The blood was too thick.”
I shook my head sadly for Uncle Jack’s lost love.
“What?" said Cam, brows lifted in surprise at my response. “What’s not to understand?”
When Uncle Jack came home, he stashed the mess kit in a dark corner of the basement of the yellow house on Stratfield Street, along with Tony’s bomber jacket and some wartime magazines. Jack resumed his work as a mason and, on the weekends, tended the family garden and pear tree. He was silent about his experiences overseas.
Cam's face drooped in recalling those years. As she added a jar of tomatoes to the garlic, she said, “He was like a stranger when he came home from the war.”
* * * *
The small mahogany lap desk is carved with maple leaves encircled by tiny diamonds and interwoven vines. My mother gave it to Casey, but once, it belonged to my great-grandmother, Ama.
In sepia photographs, Ama’s eyes are deep-set, and almost melancholy. They remind me of her daughter, my grandmother Byeo, and even, of my mother. As I grow older, when I look in the mirror, I see all three women in my own deep-set eyes.
Mom loved her grandmother dearly and describes her as high-spirited. Once while waiting for a train, Ama snuck uninvited into a church during a wedding. One of the ushers was so taken by her charm that he insisted on escorting her to a seat directly behind the bride’s family. Given the circumstances, Ama’s manners prevented escape and she missed her train while witnessing strangers’ vows.
My parents were married in Ama’s house in the fifties. As I trace the carvings on the lid of the lap desk with my finger, I wonder if Ama addressed the invitations to the ceremony upon its leather writing surface.
* * * *
Each morning, I do my exercises on the floor in Tucker’s room. Although he is still in evidence in the Tae Kwon Do trophy, the bi-plane he crafted from toothpicks in fourth grade, and countless texts from bygone courses, he now attends college, and the shift from boy’s room to store room is occurring.
As I lie on my left side, doing leg lifts, I’ve noticed a pair of clunky black sneakers under the bed. They’re big, maybe size eleven, and I wonder when Tuck wore them last.
His final years at home were unhappy; he was miserable at the local high school. The bus would pull up in the afternoon and the front door would slam. Tuck would clump, clump, clump up the stairs, grunting to the forced cheer of my greeting. The door to his room would crash shut, and there he’d brood, emerging only for meals or phone calls.
Where had my little boy gone?
I recently hung a photograph of Tucker and Casey on the wall in Tucker’s room. Casey, at about three months old, appears uncomfortable in the arms of her big brother, but his face is contented as he smiles at someone off-camera. I remember the day that Dave took the shot and while doing my daily exercises on the floor, I’ve realized that smile, so full of love, was for me.
The angel-faced Tucker in the picture has grown up, and thankfully, so has the angry boy who kicked those sneakers under the bed. Once enrolled in a boarding school where he felt he belonged, my boy seemed to become…well, the happier boy we used to know.
Perhaps we were wrong to hold him here as long as we did. We are given our children for such a short span; I didn’t want to lose him any sooner than necessary. I guess sometimes the losing lies in the holding.
I could be a proper housekeeper and clear out the space under that bed. Send off those sneakers to Goodwill or the church... and eventually, I will. Right now though, I’m keeping them as a shrine of sorts – a frozen moment. I picture Tucker just home from school or Tae Kwon Do untying his sneakers. He kicks them carelessly out of the way, and they tumble, laces dragging, unseen, untouched, for six years.
* * * *
As I spin through my days, dusting Dave’s pipe rack or adjusting the print Casey gave me, it is interesting to think consciously of that action as a moment caught in time. On one specific evening, Uncle Jack fit together the halves of his mess kit, swinging the handle in place until it caught. Ama, at some point, signed a letter with her spidery script, closed the lid of her lap desk, and never opened it again. Tucker, one afternoon, toed off his black sneakers and kicked them under the bed for good.
On each of these simple items left behind, that final touch remains. A connection.
The doorstop from Mom’s childhood room in St. Louis is displayed on the dining room mantel and Dad’s red chest, his toybox of sixty-five years ago, holds sweaters at the foot of my bed. Uncle Jack’s mess kit, Ama’s lap desk, and even Tucker’s cast-off sneakers, are remnants of lives and places precious to me that have come to rest in this house. When I slow down to notice, each one tells a story…
* * * *
As charred and crusty as it is, Uncle Jack’s World War II field mess kit is ingenious. Two oval metal trays with deep sides form the top and bottom, one partitioned to better organize the meal, the other converting easily into a saucepan. The band holding the two halves in repose swings up and out to form a handle. As Aunty Cam sorted through decades of keepsakes in preparation for moving, she discovered the mess kit and gave it to us.
Dave’s Uncle Jack died four years ago of colon cancer, too young, and unnecessarily, at age seventy-six. Despite his persistent and accurate reporting of symptoms to his doctors, their tests failed to detect the lethal tumor. “It was hidden beyond reach of the scope. We’re sorry....”
Like his brothers, Tony and Phil, Jack served in the army in Italy during the forties. He was an ambulance driver, charged with retrieving bodies as much as transporting the wounded. As he hunched by a campfire after a day’s work, warming Spam and beans neatly partitioned in his aluminum tray, was he haunted by visions of the limp-limbed corpses he’d hoisted into his ambulance, the sons and brothers who would not return home?
While on leave, he visited his relatives in Caserta and fell in love with his first cousin, Josephina. But even as a soldier, an ocean away from home, Jack answered to his mother, Lucia. Mama would not tolerate romance with a first cousin and demanded an end to the courtship.
I remember sitting at the table in Cam’s kitchen when I first heard this tale. Garlic toasted in fruity olive oil on the stove while Cam squeezed fresh lemon juice onto the salad. Cam explained, “It would have been one thing if the cousins had been born of two sisters, but they were of brothers. Too close! The blood was too thick.”
I shook my head sadly for Uncle Jack’s lost love.
“What?" said Cam, brows lifted in surprise at my response. “What’s not to understand?”
When Uncle Jack came home, he stashed the mess kit in a dark corner of the basement of the yellow house on Stratfield Street, along with Tony’s bomber jacket and some wartime magazines. Jack resumed his work as a mason and, on the weekends, tended the family garden and pear tree. He was silent about his experiences overseas.
Cam's face drooped in recalling those years. As she added a jar of tomatoes to the garlic, she said, “He was like a stranger when he came home from the war.”
* * * *
The small mahogany lap desk is carved with maple leaves encircled by tiny diamonds and interwoven vines. My mother gave it to Casey, but once, it belonged to my great-grandmother, Ama.
In sepia photographs, Ama’s eyes are deep-set, and almost melancholy. They remind me of her daughter, my grandmother Byeo, and even, of my mother. As I grow older, when I look in the mirror, I see all three women in my own deep-set eyes.
Mom loved her grandmother dearly and describes her as high-spirited. Once while waiting for a train, Ama snuck uninvited into a church during a wedding. One of the ushers was so taken by her charm that he insisted on escorting her to a seat directly behind the bride’s family. Given the circumstances, Ama’s manners prevented escape and she missed her train while witnessing strangers’ vows.
My parents were married in Ama’s house in the fifties. As I trace the carvings on the lid of the lap desk with my finger, I wonder if Ama addressed the invitations to the ceremony upon its leather writing surface.
* * * *
Each morning, I do my exercises on the floor in Tucker’s room. Although he is still in evidence in the Tae Kwon Do trophy, the bi-plane he crafted from toothpicks in fourth grade, and countless texts from bygone courses, he now attends college, and the shift from boy’s room to store room is occurring.
As I lie on my left side, doing leg lifts, I’ve noticed a pair of clunky black sneakers under the bed. They’re big, maybe size eleven, and I wonder when Tuck wore them last.
His final years at home were unhappy; he was miserable at the local high school. The bus would pull up in the afternoon and the front door would slam. Tuck would clump, clump, clump up the stairs, grunting to the forced cheer of my greeting. The door to his room would crash shut, and there he’d brood, emerging only for meals or phone calls.
Where had my little boy gone?
I recently hung a photograph of Tucker and Casey on the wall in Tucker’s room. Casey, at about three months old, appears uncomfortable in the arms of her big brother, but his face is contented as he smiles at someone off-camera. I remember the day that Dave took the shot and while doing my daily exercises on the floor, I’ve realized that smile, so full of love, was for me.
The angel-faced Tucker in the picture has grown up, and thankfully, so has the angry boy who kicked those sneakers under the bed. Once enrolled in a boarding school where he felt he belonged, my boy seemed to become…well, the happier boy we used to know.
Perhaps we were wrong to hold him here as long as we did. We are given our children for such a short span; I didn’t want to lose him any sooner than necessary. I guess sometimes the losing lies in the holding.
I could be a proper housekeeper and clear out the space under that bed. Send off those sneakers to Goodwill or the church... and eventually, I will. Right now though, I’m keeping them as a shrine of sorts – a frozen moment. I picture Tucker just home from school or Tae Kwon Do untying his sneakers. He kicks them carelessly out of the way, and they tumble, laces dragging, unseen, untouched, for six years.
* * * *
As I spin through my days, dusting Dave’s pipe rack or adjusting the print Casey gave me, it is interesting to think consciously of that action as a moment caught in time. On one specific evening, Uncle Jack fit together the halves of his mess kit, swinging the handle in place until it caught. Ama, at some point, signed a letter with her spidery script, closed the lid of her lap desk, and never opened it again. Tucker, one afternoon, toed off his black sneakers and kicked them under the bed for good.
On each of these simple items left behind, that final touch remains. A connection.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
