May 12.24: Coping, but barely

Once upon a time I was maybe in third grade when Sister Eleanor hovered over my desk. The word “terror” applies. “Who taught you to write?” she asked (was that a tear in her voice?). Thank goodness that terror tied my tongue and I didn’t reply “You did, Sister.”

Penmanship. Woe. Those hideous circles and ovals — just what had they to do with real life?

My mother’s handwriting was beautiful. Did I inherit that gene? Not even close. I have mastered a hybrid, part print, part longhand, which I can (usually) read. I should give thanks for the keyboard, yes? No. There is something about handwriting which is a fragment of a real person.

Many of us have handwritten recipe cards. There’s a person there under the ancient splots. When we take out those cards — or, from my grandmothers’ kitchens, scraps of calendars — we hold a flesh-and-blood woman. A mom. A grandma. A voice. An ironed apron.

We all know that you don’t have to give birth to be a mother. And for all those women in our lives who have mothered us, with or without the ironed apron, we stop for a moment today. We salute them all.

Happy Mothers’ Day to all who mother and have mothered!

 

May 10.24: Coping, but barely

The key

 

One day a very young me walked into my grandma’s simple kitchen and stopped dead, transfixed and wide-eyed. There, on the other side of her rolling floor, was the marvel of my life.  It was a dollhouse made out of a tall cardboard box. A townhouse (not that I knew at the time what a townhouse was). I’d never seen the like.

Some of its contents were real honest-to-Woolworth’s store-bought dollhouse furniture, and maybe a plastic baby or two, but most of it was created out of scraps. Imagine custom curtains made from bits of the pink plastic ruffle thumb-tacked to the edge of pantry shelves (eat your heart out, Martha Stewart). Oh, it was wonderful, and I spent countless happy hours playing with that, living, of course, inside it. Pretending.

That is why it is Grandma’s fault that I look at homes like these and immediately start placing my furniture. Imagining living in rooms shaped like that. Imagining walking up those stairs and being elegant. Imagining curtains of vines and trees. Imagining such refuge from the wind-up world.

Pretending is the key that unlocks all doors, so I can go in and know just where the chocolate is.

 

With thanks to photographer Kerfe at methodtwomadness,

submitted to Dan Antion’s

Thursday Doors Writing Challenge

 

 

April 12.24: Coping, but barely

Here is a bit of U.S. history, pertinent to some of us at this time.

1948, dear taxpayer:

   

 

There you have it, beginning to end, four pages: three for calculations, one for tax table. This, of course, excludes the instructions, which no doubt were as illuminating as the directions on these pages. I was only five at this point and didn’t notice such things, but as I grew older I learned to give Dad a wide berth at tax time. When he spread papers out on the table in the breakfast nook and held his head, we knew this was time to be respected almost as much as a Notre Dame game on television.

 

March 2.24: Coping, but barely

The finest crystal

can’t compare

to Pepsi’s streamlined

fit and flare.

Cozy in hand

like tailored glove,

holds the cold —

what’s not to love?

And yet still more

its virtue shining,

back in the day

of starch and ironing,

when mangles graced

each family proper,

and Pepsi bottle

wore its stopper,

turning it

to quick appliance,

sprinkling away

wrinkle defiance.

For vase, there wasn’t

other cola

could hold the queenly

gladiola.

So I toast the bottle

just as I oughter

with twenty-first century

filtered water.

 

Back in the day, Pepsi, which lived all frosty and fizzy in our refrigerator, was the forbidden fruit. Not to be had except with written permission from the pope, the president, and, even more formidable, The Mom. No one just opened it and took a swig. Uh-UH.

It was therefore my favorite drink.

A select few of you might remember the fine art of dampening hankies. Or white dress shirts. Or sheets. (Yes, we ironed sheets and pillowcases, and don’t get me started on my mother as ironing queen.) The Pepsi bottle ruled as sprinkler. I still have the artifact to prove it. How else can I demonstrate to my grandchildren the ways of prehistoric cave dwellers?

 

More thanks to photographer S. W. Berg

for the photo of the classic Pepsi vase.

And kudos to those creative repurposers!

 

January 30.24: Coping, but barely

I stood in the kitchen pondering the winter world through my window; what wasn’t brown and grey was grey and brown. Sunless days had lumped into a lead weight in my head. What a fine moment for a poet’s melancholy, and then I looked up. Darn. There was Grandpa Mauck, looking out from his winter day, telling me to get real!

You might know the movie “A Christmas Story,” dear reader, set in Hohman, Indiana, which was really Hammond, Indiana, where I was born. This is Hammond. Grandpa was a Borden milkman there. A milkman! What mystique! What could be more enviable than riding a sled behind horses delivering milk in freezing temperatures?

Grandpa left Borden for a so-called better job, but all he had then was a lot of paper and people working for him. Boring.

Meanwhile, I was growing up in a house with a wooden milkbox at the side door. The milkman drove a truck, not a horse, and stopped by a couple times a week. The milkbox had a door that pulled out, making it a cozy place for the cream to freeze and push up over the (glass) bottle. I remember the pleated-edge paper caps that sat like cloche hats atop the frozen cream.

In the summers, before air conditioning, the milkman allowed us to climb into the cool back of his truck, which smelled awful, but the ice was remarkably clear and therefore desirable, so, much to my mother’s horror, we sometimes got chips to chew on.

Then I looked out the window again, and everything was still brown and grey.

(Grandpa is the one in the middle.)

 

January 15.24: Coping, but barely

Beanies on the trellis,

a topping most precarious,

a balance act of daring,

defying air nefarious.

The steely north wind roars

head on to southern blast

of pugnacious rainy air

over garden mizzenmast.

Rambunctious winter storm,

duking cosmic knuckles,

can’t displace the beanies

no matter their swashbuckles.

Proud and straight the trellis,

unbowed by storms or mirrors,

it hasn’t any clue

how goofy it appears.

 

Perhaps you too have beanie memories, dear reader. I have several. One was back in fourth grade, when Confirmation was a significant milestone, and we were dressed accordingly in gorgeous white robes, with sleeves that flowed like the Mississippi. I loved those sleeves, and I flapped around in happy contentment. I was a butterfly queen in that white robe. But then they crowned me with a beanie. A beanie! In Holy Ghost red, more’s the ignominy! I went from queen to fungus in an instant.

I still think the Holy Ghost laughed uncontrollably.

All this from looking out the window.

 

December 24.23: Coping, but barely

How fantastical,

how stickily droll,

Christmas lights

in mixing bowl!

No treasure chest

of royal bling

could be more saucy,

more nose-beguiling.

In glint of ruby,

emerald, gold,

its riches twinkling

manifold,

with storied kitchens

thus entrusted,

memories soon

to be encrusted.

 

I had a Christmas wish list which included mincemeat pie for Christmas, and didn’t my daughter-in-law decide to make her own mincemeat! I am in awe of how beautiful it is, and I am even more in awe of her ambition!

There is nothing about mincemeat that doesn’t take me back to my Grandma O’Hern’s dining room. I endeared myself to everyone then by eating the filling and leaving the crust, but I’m better now.

All our traditions come with wishes, hopes, dreams. We are very aware this year of all those whose dreams and hopes have been shattered by violence, whether by words or by other weapons. I know how fortunate I am to be able to wish for mincemeat pie while others wish for survival.

May your traditions bring you beauty and hope, dear reader. May you and your loved ones be safe.

 

With thanks to Kelley Wilson Mesterharm for photo

and for visions of mincemeat dancing in my head!

 

December 7.23: Coping, but barely

I grew up,

very long ago,

in another world,

the Land of Just-So.

This went here,

that went there,

in the Land of Just-So,

a scrupulous air.

Monday awash

in detergent solution,

all things foldable,

household ablution.

Tuesday’s iron,

clothesline scent,

dampened hankies,

Helen Trent.

Saturday’s shoes,

shampoo and set,

all spit-polished

for Sunday’s debt.

Christmas! Caution!

Order ruled!

In art of tinsel

were we schooled.

Lights with ruffs

like daisy petals,

real tree,

hot lights and metals.

Do it this way —

it’s a must!

Peace on earth,

but first we dust!

I remember.

But I disdain

neurotic Christmas

plague and bane,

and have matured

impatient, restive,

thinking cobwebs

might be festive.

I’ve left Just-So

as turtles run

for the saner land of

Just-Get-It-Done!

 

You may believe me, dear reader, when I say that this gap in my tree, pictured above, would have had my mother grabbing for the smelling salts. Further, there are ornaments that do not hang freely but slouch against other things — and light cords that show! To the fainting couch!

I have written before about Just-So and I’m sure I will again. Everything just so. I still struggle to overcome it, but I’m making good progress.

 

October 4.23: Coping, but barely

How squeezable and cute

a baby’s chubby knee,

dimpled, smooth and pink,

plumped cherubically.

Later very useful

for fledgling acrobat,

mercurochromed so festively

from daily crash and splat.

As years leave their patina,

and change on knee bestow,

it tends to lumpy profile

somewhat like good bread dough.

Veins of royal purple,

like maps of city roads,

in bas-relief gelatinous

convey their mortal loads.

Comes now our hallowed Congress,

many aged like me,

with nothing else to do

but debate their show of knee.

A dress code? Are you kidding?

Have wars been changed to peace?

Has hunger disappeared,

have all our tensions ceased?

Did someone dare to think

that aging legs and knees

were Congressional attraction,

a happy sight? Oh, please!

I can rightly speak to age

because I’m very eighty,

I hold that there are matters

considerably more weighty,

and furthermore the knee

(it really must be said)

adds little to aesthetics —

let’s speak of brains instead.

 

The knees in the photo above are mine. Or, more properly, were mine. I can say with all modesty that I was amazingly gifted at falling. If you, dear reader, remember roller skates that clipped onto your shoes (your play shoes) and were tightened there with a “skate key,” then you may also remember what happened when you were going full speed and hit that fanged crack in the sidewalk. Contrary to my father’s account, I did not cause those cracks in the sidewalk.

 

 

June 22.23: Coping, but barely

I was never much of a reader. My misspent youth was at the piano. But sometimes there would be a Nancy Drew book in the summer, and the piano would wonder where I was. I was with Nancy and her chums, of course, in her roadster and wearing a frock!

Then my own chums and I would talk about the books.

That is my impressive background as a book reviewer. But a book review is an opinion, yes? And I do have a vast experience giving my opinions. Opinions, I find, are quite the fashion these days anyway.

I’ve followed Dan Antion’s blog for some time now. When Dan started to talk about the books he was writing, I followed along but didn’t see that they would be anything I’d be interested in. I rarely read fiction, let alone anything that might border on science fiction or fantasy. But the title of the first book was “Knuckleheads,” one of my favorite words. The hook was in.

This is my review of his trilogy: I have not done so much daytime reading since Nancy Drew! I am in a state of disbelief at how I was so unexpectedly, wholemindedly pulled into Dan’s story.

Yesterday I read the last word of the last book, slowly uncoiling from the tension of the final chapters, and then just sat, trying to remember what my daytime routine used to be.

I am sending Dan’s trilogy to my life-long friend Ann, in NY. How appropriate since she shared her Nancy Drew books with me so long ago. She is deep into “Knuckleheads” and her chum there is waiting impatiently for her turn with it.

A bonus: the pages in all three books have wonderful white space.

 

“Knuckleheads”

“The Evil You Choose”

“When Evil Chooses You”

With congratulations to Dan on his gifts as a storyteller!