Category Archives: Life at Home

The Last Word

20 Friday Apr 2012

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Twenty years ago, when my youngest was four and I was thirty-something, he told me he was going to live with me forever; that way, he’d be able to drive me to the grocery store when I got old.

Of course, I always knew the time would come when he’d have new and better dreams than living with his mother.  I figured it’d happen right after college graduation — as it so often does — though, lucky for me, the big bad wolf recession ended up granting me a two-year reprieve.

Not that the extra two years together has always been a cake walk.  No, truth be told, at times, we’ve driven one another crazy rather than to the grocery store.  He’s called me snarky.  And I’ve called him a slob.  And he tells me he’s not as much a slob as some of his friends.  That, in fact, compared to his friends, he’s quite neat.  And, then I say  — with a long gaze across his bedroom, how hard THAT is to imagine –  and how, he needs to compare his housekeeping standards to those he shares life with rather than with the bigger slobs he doesn’t.

And then he says something else.  And I say something else.  Then he.  Then me.  Then he.  Until finally, I stop talking and walk away.  Not in a snarky huff, mind you.  No, being the adult, or at least the older adult, I walk away THINKING a reply, that I keep to myself.  Or sometimes share with my husband.  Because, both being writers, Kyle and I each want the last word.   And this way, we both get it.  He verbally.  Me mentally.  And we’re both happy.  Sort of.  Mostly.

Except now I’m sad.  Mostly.  Because Kyle’s moving out this weekend.  And the parting is truly ‘such sweet sorrow,’ and not just on my end, I think.

And all week-long, when it seemed as if we had a zillion things to do, my husband and I have instead been moving furniture to Kyle’s new home, twenty minutes down the road.

And all week-long, I’ve thought of how good this move will be for Kyle.  And said the same to Kyle.

And all week-long, I’ve thought about how much I’m going to miss Kyle living with us.  And said the same to Kyle.

And all week-long, I’ve thought off Kyle’s silly sweet dream of living with me forever and driving me to the grocery store when I get old.

Funny how it was Kyle, not me, who brought that old dream up.  It happened last night, I think.  About the time he mentioned that he’d miss living here with his father and me.

To which all I could do was nod.  Because there was nothing else to say. Then.

And now.  Maybe just this:  Kyle has always been sweet and always had a way with words, too, so that they’d stick, if not to memory, then at least to my heart.

Last night was no exception.

Chasing Rainbows

14 Saturday Apr 2012

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How it humbles me to know — that my granddaughter’s suitcase has been packed since four o’clock yesterday –  that she could hardly wait to spend time with me.

Relationships between grandparents and their grandchildren are as mystical as the nature of time and life itself.  Without trying to reduce it to words, all I can say is that what is ordinary somehow becomes extraordinary when “grand” people get together.  It was that way with me and mine, that way between my children and theirs and now, it appears, it’s also that way with my own ‘grands.’

Me and this once curly top grandchild of mine — the one coming today — go way back.  We spent many days together, Curly Karson and I — the best part of two years — back during her Shirley Temple look-alike years, when this photo was taken, in the midst of her third year of life.  Six years fast-forward, she’s in the middle of her ninth year.  And, I pray, I won’t sound too grandmother-ish by commenting how I think she’ growing up way too fast, which, I fear, means I too, must be growing old right beside her?

Much like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I feel as if I’m standing at the intersection of four different yellow brick roads.  From this point of the post, I could take off in many directions.  Why if I wished I could write of those lessons Karson taught me — about paying attention to life — which she did, without effort, while I was attending to her young life. “Look, Nana, an airplane!”  — “Look, Nana.  Birds.”  And sure enough.  Who but a child would notice them, or regard them as a miracle to share?  Airplanes and birds in the sky.  Why I learned during those years that there was an ever ready, never ending supply of flying objects to notice  — why all one had to do was stop, look and listen to the larger world around them — rather than keeping their heads in clouds or lost in the latest task at hand.

Or shall I recall how Shirley Temple look-alikes run in our family, how my Aunt Carol, when she was a pre-schooler, was ‘discovered’ by a Hollywood talent scout in the late thirties.  Oh how he wished to sign her on the spot to play Shirley’s little sister, after seeing my not-yet aunt perform a song and dance routine on top of a neighborhood bar?  Funny how Aunt Carol called out of the blue yesterday to make sure I was paying attention to the ‘severe’ weather forecasts, to make sure I had a storm cellar to run to if need arose.

Or do I confess how different today will be, after spending the last three weeks with ghosts of family past — thinking, thinking, thinking — occasionally writing — occasionally uncovering a new puzzle piece to add to the pile — occasionally making a magical connection, locking a couple of puzzling pieces of Dad’s childhood story together.  Why his story consumes me.   Which is to say, history consumes me, that it consumes the best hours of the day, as time slips like sand through an hourglass, while I sit in a chair with monkeys on my back –  stories and old photos spread about me — wondering about next steps.  I’m all alone with it, with only Aunt Carol’s memory and historical archives to point me in another direction, in my chase of rainbows and fabled pots of gold lying at tale’s end.

But as for the direction of this post, I suppose it’s most fitting to attend to the present, like Karson taught me all those years ago. She’ll be here in an hour or so.  Already, since writing these words, she’s called to let me know how excited she is to come.  And do I have exciting plans?  Well, no.  Not really.  Oh, I suppose we’ll make sugar cookies, because as she says, we ALWAYS make cookies, don’t we Nana?

But as for the rest, i don’t know what the day and evening will hold.  There’s no use planning it to death, since children, too, prefer wiggle room for rainbow chasing and pots of gold.  But, perhaps, if weather forecasters are wrong and weather plays nice, we’ll go to the art museum.

Or, if weather turns nasty and predictable, we can just stay home — pop some corn and watch something stormy on the small screen.  Maybe we’ll watch Helen Hunt chase a Twister or two with that Dorothy weather invention of her’s.  Or maybe, we’ll immerse ourselves in history, and watch a twister of a different shade that begins in marvelous black and white and dumps an over-the-rainbow singing Dorothy Gail and ToTo, too, into a magical land of living color.

Wherever we land, here’s hoping Karson saved space in that suitcase of her’s for a few grand memories to take home with her.

Braking Tradition

08 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care

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No traditional Easter luncheon for us this year.

No baked ham.  Deviled eggs.  Nor scalloped potatoes or pineapple.

No family gatherings around the dining table.  Which is fitting, I suppose, since I’ve no dining chairs to gather around the table.  A case of poor timing on my part, they’re off being re-upholstered –  and my three married children are off celebrating elsewhere.  Kara and Kate are at their father’s place in Chandler and I think Bryan and new daughter-in-law Amy are in Tulsa with her family.

Today, we are a trinity of diners  — father, son and an unholy ghost of a mother, who once would have ensured she had at least touched based with all her chicks to know their plans, to perhaps let them know they were loved, if not with exact words, at least with action, as in an invitation to dine.  Or to drop by for dessert and a visit — perhaps, the perennial pink-swirled sugar cookies, called “Sweeties,” that became, without thought of tradition-making, my signature grandmother cookie.  Or maybe, if I had a few kinds souls to help me eat it, my very favorite coconut cream pie.

Alas, it’s chocolate cream pie for us today.  My sacrifice for the two I live with, since husband and son prefer chocolate to coconut.  But that’s okay since it’s becoming a day for breaking traditions — it will be my husband, instead of me, cooking in front of the stove today.  He offered to cook Cashew Chicken over steamed rice.  And I accepted.  It’s one of my favorite dishes he makes that — as luck would have it — he no longer enjoys.  So making it will become his sacrifice for me.

Perhaps all this off-with-the-old traditional meal and ways of celebrating is a good thing to do at Easter — and other holy days, too — at least on occasion.  Who knows but maybe the little sacrificial acts won’t bleed into everyday life.  But, even if they don’t, it’s good to take breaks from tradition.  Because, I confess, tradition blinds me.  It makes me deaf.  So much that it takes something new to wake me up — to stir me back to life — to the who and what which lies beyond and beneath the traditions of celebration.

So today, having no need to work heart out in the kitchen — for a feast consumed in thirty minutes or less — I’ve been contemplating the what’s and who’s of my life.   I’ve thought of the past, about parents and marvelous Easter dinners I’ve been blessed to enjoy.  I’ve thought of past egg hunts at my Granny’s house, when the egg-hiders –  my mother and her sister Jo and sister-in-law Georgia, who then seemed old beyond years, but — I see far more clearly, now, even with failing eyesight, — were oh so young — as they told us kids to close our eyes and not to peek.  As they’d wander off together laughing, toward the front yard with real boiled eggs dyed all the colors of the rainbow.  I’ve thought of other hunts that had nothing to do with boiled eggs, the one all the way back to that first Resurrection Sunday, to that young trinity of visitors to Jesus’ tomb — Mary, Peter and John — and how frightened they were to find no body home.

Funny how I’ve yet to think of the future.  But, thinking there now, I can’t imagine the thought of breaking the tradition of ham and hunts and family gatherings forever.  I cannot bear the thought of never again hosting all of my children and their families  to future grand Easter feasts and egg hunts.

Instead, I hope today is only a slowing down, a braking rather than a breaking of Easter traditions.   That I’ll soon recover my motherly mojo — not that I ever had a full cup of this, but at least whatever portion I once enjoyed — enough, to gather my chicks home, to a place that celebrates our joined and imperfect past as it builds bridges to some shared imperfect future.

Because no body, but nobody, like Jesus, lives here at this house.  Though sometimes, even in the smallest sacrifice, I catch a glimpse of him or two.  Maybe a ghost of his holiness.  A taste of him on my tongue.  If not in the breaking of bread, then in the braking of tradition.

Cashew Chicken, anyone?

Cashew Chicken for Three

1/2 lb boneless chicken breasts, cut in thin strips
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp canola oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 small onion, diced
1/4 lb mushrooms, trimmed, sliced thin through stems
1 Tbsp canola oil
2 cups cabbage, shredded
1/2 tsp sugar
3 oz cashew nuts, salt rinsed off, dried
1/2 tsp cornstarch

1/8 cup soy sauce

In small bowl, blend soy sauce and corn starch and add chicken.  Let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.

Heat 1 Tbsp oil with salt in wok over high heat.  Add chicken and stir-fry until white and firm.  Add onion and mushrooms, continuing to stir-fry until vegetables are soft.  Transfer wok contents to bowl.  Add remaining oil to wok with cabbage and sugar.  Stir-fry about 3-4 minutes until cabbage is crisp-tender.  Return chicken-vegetable mixture to wok, add cashews and toss to combine.  Sir in final cornstarch and soy sauce.  Cover and steam for a minute.  Uncover and stir until sauce is thickened.

Serve over steamed rice.