The recipe,
that work of art,
bequeathed from bubbling
kitchen heart,
with stain and splot
of ancient dough,
bringing to Now
the Long-ago.
Penmanship of
floured hand,
preserved on paper
less than grand,
thus creating
choice giftwrap
of what was once
a lowly scrap.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg,
and to Rose Schloot, owner of Cross River Lodge,
Grand Marais, Minnesota,
where this eloquent old piece of the past is displayed.
I see many references to isolation and aloneness these days. As an introvert, I’m comfortable with aloneness. Usually content with my own company, I do not crave the madding crowd. Aloneness isn’t always loneliness.
But I haven’t been with my family since March 6. No hugs for three months! There’s loneliness in that, as many elderly (and not-so-elderly) know.
It has recently occurred to me that there is another dimension to my aloneness. My close friends vary in age, but all of us have experienced family death in our parents’ generation. However, among my friends, I am the only one to have lost the sibling connection to the past; I’m the first to be The Last. This hit me as a revelation. Unaware, I’ve been grappling with a sense of aloneness among my friends.
I am an old single parent who is also The Last One of the family she grew up with — those are my particular circumstances — but I think most of us are grappling with some kind of aloneness, and maybe loneliness too, at this time. It doesn’t mean we have the same life experiences, only that we are in the same human condition. Human, but dangerously corrosive, all the more so swirled as it is with anger.
As I’ve said before, I think writers write about two things: what is, and what could be. Sometimes we can’t write about what could be until we write about what is. For me, this is what is.
Sunday brunch al fresco
never better was
with family all decked out
in finest feather and fuzz.
Ten of my mother’s favorite rules:
Nothing is clean if you do it the easy way.
If it holds still, iron it.
Always counter the opposing view with “that’s just dumb.”
There is no such thing as too many Christmas cookies.
Always bake with butter.
Never leave the house without a hankie.
The punch line is irrelevant.
Pie is for breakfast.
Nothing is more beautiful than cows’ eyes.
Gardening isn’t work.
My resident gremlin has hidden the photo I wanted to post with this. If you, dear reader, have experience with such a gremlin, then you know it is absolutely not my fault that I can’t find it. But I know my mom would love that peony bud.
I am not a big fan of what Mothers’ Day has become here, but I’m a fan of all mothers and fathers and grandparents and foster parents and all others who step up to nurture and protect children. May they all, present and past, be honored. And may we find ways to help them at this time.
Edna and me (not a recent photo)
Some years ago, I spent Saturday afternoons with my Aunt Edna, who lived in an apartment about half an hour away. I always called ahead for her grocery list so that, on my way to her place, I could do her weekly shopping for her. Then I’d pick up sandwiches for us.
When I would come out of the grocery store, shoving the cart into a driving cold rain, or, better yet, into a faceful of wet snow, and then try to get the bags into the car without dropping my purse into the slush, I must admit I was no saint: I grumbled and groused to myself. What a mess I was, and what a mess everything was. And then in and out for our sandwiches, and then wrestle all of it into her apartment…nope, not a saint.
But, on the side of virtue, I think I got a grip on my lesser self before she opened her door. She’d pour each of us a small glass of white wine, always the perfect complement to my all-time favorite tuna fish sandwich, and we’d settle into some good yacking.
Today we are having a very cold, relentless rain. It is dark and miserable. My wonderful daughter-in-law, hooded and dripping, just deposited multiple bags of groceries at my front door, and laughed a bit as we social distanced.
Am I thinking about the cycle of life? You bet.
Tomorrow, said the bard,
creeps from day to day.
Tomorrow, Annie sang,
the sun will come out to play.
I prefer the winsome second
but I feel the somber first
as fearful grim realities
grind from bad to worst.
Now it’s personal, dear reader. My son is presumed positive.
And so we wait.
I wish I could say April Fool!
Eyes up
or dead ahead
full-faced
uncorseted
youthful
oaken vertebrae
steel-enforced
DNA.
Downcast eyes
will not attend
the future that
these two portend.
Fearless Girl times two
foreseeing
each steadfast
in her own being.
To all the dads who have given the world Fearless Girls, a very happy Fathers’ Day!
With thanks to the unnamed photographer,
to sculptor Kristen Visbal,
and, of course, to Emmy.
On Being The Caboose
Do you remember the words spoken of George Washington: “First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen”? With a trifling modification, they could be spoken of me: last at the table, last out the door, last to finish anything. I was considered the dawdler, the slowpoke, the Grand Pooh-Bah of Time Wasting. My father referred to me as “the late Maureen O’Hern.”
What nonsense. I was deliberate. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the concept of the clock; it was that the clock didn’t understand the concept of me. I was– ahem — unrushed.
And thus did I become the family caboose. Always, always last.
I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately because now, in a new way, I am last. Of the family I grew up with, I am the only one left. Now no one remembers but me. I am hit hard by this, not least because of my desire to write combined with my amazing inability to tell a story.
Bringing up the rear gives one a certain perspective, perhaps not entirely flattering but in a way whole. Where do I go with that? What words do I give it? I know you understand, dear reader, because you are here. You know about words. We want for permanence; in some pauper’s way, our words give that.
PART TWO
In matters of parenting
we have to admit
some things beyond
our control and our wit:
whether two or two hundred,
one will get loose,
another will always
be the caboose.
If you know me, dear reader, you know I do not love these geese.
However, I have to grant they are occasionally hilarious.
PART ONE
I think they look huffy,
a bit high and mighty,
as though family life
is always this tidy.
I think it’s a ruse,
this complacent look,
a portrait for gloating
on their family Facebook.
Such serene air
is hardly the way
most parents spend
a usual day.
So here’s to reality,
mess by the ton:
a whole lot of work,
a whole lot of fun!
A happy day to all who mother!
(And, yes, some days the work:fun ratio is not stellar.)
