Brave, part 2

As night came everyone started packing up and stumbling off.  Most folded up their lawn chairs and headed for their cars, poking here and there at the bushes to find the gap to walk through to the parking lot now that it was pitch dark outside.  Rob and his family had a camper on the property so it was simply a matter of rounding up the small children and herding them inside.  A few other families split off to grassy locations and popped up dome tents.  I could have gone either way; I could have gotten in my car and driven through the night back home, or popped a tent.  Since staying till morning meant visiting another set of cousins and a block of homemade cheese from the Amish store, I went for the tent.

The morning that came was dewey and gray, but I woke with no trace of either a hangover or the back pain customary of sleeping on the ground.  I climbed out of my tent and stood barefoot in the wet grass.  Residents of other tents were also stirring, and those of us who had emerged waved sheepishly, each fumbling with our bed hair and wrinkled clothing.  I waited until Lindsay and Rob had emerged from their sleeping places and said goodbye, then threw all my gear back into the car and started the drive around the lake to the home of another family.

Cousin Mel met me with a cup of coffee and a homemade blueberry muffin.  Despite the fact that I was rumpled, bleary-eyed and probably smelled like residual fireworks she led me into the kitchen and took a chair down from the top of the kitchen table for me to sit on.  “Where you mopping?” I asked.

“No,” she replied.  “The baby gets up on the chairs and up on the table and tries to hang from the chandelier.”

I started to file this away under Reasons to NOT Become a Parent, but she went on to point out spectacular refrigerator art from the same kiddo, and tell me wonderful stories of him and his sister being helpful and sweet and snuggly.  One of the stories involved a litter of kittens that had been born in the barn.  Mel had thought there were only four until her daughter found a fifth, a tiny runt so small he fit in a coffee mug, and named him Brave.  She explained how she’d been hoping the little guy would meet his end swiftly, and in a location where the kids wouldn’t find him.  There was no way he was strong enough to survive in the barn, and they were not capable of giving him care at the house.  One bit of conversation led to the next, and before I could think better of it Brave the Kitten was in my sweatshirt pocket headed for my house.

Maybe it was missing the barn and his family, maybe it was his overall weakness, but by morning Brave was in bad shape.  He wouldn’t mew, and could barely stand.  He refused food and water.  After just a few minutes of holding him he was limp.  I’d heard about, and read about, people feeling souls depart the world as they leave the body, but it’s hard thing to conceive of unless it’s happened to you.  Little Brave died peacefully in my hand, and his tiny kitten soul washed over me as he went.  Exhaused, I cried for a long time.

 

 

 

Brave, part 1

The one and only time I attended my cousin’s stepdad’s third of July party I learned that it was exactly as debaucherous as everyone had been saying it was for years.   And despite the prevailing opinion, it wasn’t for being a prude that I had never attended.  It was just always something.  Some years I’d been away, other years busy, others without transportation to the remote lakeside location.  I’d been absent so much that it was my presence that turned heads that warm afternoon.

I showed up empty handed save a fold-up lawn chair that I plunked down next to my cousin Mike’s wife, the only attendee who had waved at me.  Beside her was her daughter, a cousin of mine that I barely knew, and her son, who I’d forgotten existed.  My cousin Rob’s wife was having a beer under the food tent with someone I didn’t recognize, while her children ran wildly through the mud.  There were a spattering of other familiar faces, but only passingly so, and no one that I thought I could strike up a conversation with.  At that point I was unemployed, recently moved, and engaged to someone they’d never met, so there weren’t a whole lot of talking points that would take us very far.  As I was reconsidering my attendance, cousin Lindsay showed up.

She and I were about 10 years apart in age, but we were closer than me and her older sister.  We caught each other up on our lives relatively quickly , but it was obvious she was scanning the party for someone else.  I had no idea who until cousin Jason showed up and Lindsay’s whole demeanor changed.  Where she had been bubbly, she was now stealthy.  He walked up to us and they talked in hushed voices, a step away from me, eyeing the break in the bushes that led to the place where the cars were parked.  Oh my goodness they’re going to steal a car, I thought, because that’s what cousin Rob would have whispered to me about in our youth.  Instead, as they walked off together, I saw Jason pull a small pouch from his pocket.  Whew, I thought, they’re just going to smoke.  Bad, but could be worse. In condolence to myself, I went to get a beer.

 

Dad folding laundry

Dad would do laundry on Sunday afternoons after church.  Mom would be away hosting an open house and he would get the notion that it was time to Help Mom by doing the laundry.  I am mostly entirely sure that Mom did not need – in fact did not want – Dad to do the laundry but was too busy to say anything about it.

The washing part was easy.  The laundry  machine washed the laundry without me or Dad having to do anything about it, and I took advantage of that part to sneak off (usually to read).  It wasn’t until it was out of the dryer and needed folding that I would hear Dad’s bellow, summoning me to the basement.

The first most horrible thing to fold was underwear that did not belong to me.  The memory of it is so distressing that now, as a full grown adult, I do not fold my underwear nor the underwear of anyone else in my house.  It goes in the drawer in a pile.  The second most horrible thing to fold was the towels because Dad was very particular about how the towels were folded.  From laundry day to laundry day I would forget the precise movements and need to be taught again, which prompted his rolling his eyes.  “We did this last week.  How do you not remember?” I didn’t remember.  I never remembered.  And it would take lots of prompting to get me to fold it just right.  To this day I’m not sure if I subconsciously forgot the folding technique in hopes that he would throw his hands up in exasperation and declare me free of needing to help.  If that was my plan, it never worked.

When the folding was done Dad would employ his Super Dad Technique for getting all the laundry up the stairs with no laundry basket.  He would start with me and a tall stack of folded washcloths and dishtowels.  He would cram the topmost washcloth up under my chin, and have me stretch out my arms for the bottom dishtowel, steadying them and compressing them so that they did not fly out all over.  Once he was sure I had it, he would pick up his own pile from the folding table by tipping the stack just enough to get the topmost bath towel under his own chin, and slide his hands under the bottom.  Then we would toddle up the stairs like the Red Queen in stiff neck ruffles desperately trying not to drop anything, and argue at the top about who was more capable of working the knob on the linen closet door.

On being a Hostess

My mother grew up in the country.  The country country.  The kind of country that people are talking about when they tell that story about walking to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways.  And maybe that’s why, when we make fun of my mother for her quirks, we tend to blame it on her former rural life.  But for all of her not being able to work the computer and having a love of trashy reality TV, there is one thing my mother’s rural upbringing got perfectly right: being a hostess.

My mother is the best hostess I have ever met.  Whenever people are coming to stay at the house she cleans the guest room top to bottom.  They get crisp, clean sheets and the fluffiest towels, laid perfectly at the foot of the bed.  My dad gets the job of washing out the tub, toilet and sink (a job he hasn’t relinquished even as he’s gotten older and less capable of bending.  Instead, he’s procured a telescoping bathroom cleaning wand with a sponge on the end.)  As a kid, my job was to dust and vacuum the downstairs, and now that I’m gone they split that between them, leaving the perfectly parallel “I’ve been vacuumed” tracks in the blue shag carpet they’ve had since before I was born.

As much as I hated those chores as a kid I appreciate them now that I am considered a guest.  Those parallel vacuum lines say, “we knew you were coming and prepared,” and those fluffy towels say, “we don’t see you that often, so you can have the good stuff while you’re here.”  These gestures used to make me uncomfortable.  When I was coming home from college I never wanted the fuss, the trouble they went through, or the good stuff.  But over the years I’ve stayed at many other houses, sometimes in guest rooms and sometimes on couches or floors, and I’ve come to appreciate the value of a good host to a weary traveller.

This weekend, and for several upcoming weekends through the summer, I’ll get to play host to waves of friends and family – some just visiting, and some stopping by on their way to other destinations.  The first of these just arrived, and as my mother taught me I spent the day before putting the crisp sheets on the guest bed, washing the tub, toilet and sink, and getting out the fluffy towels (we have no carpet to vacuum!).  It has become satisfying to do these things, knowing that my efforts make someone else comfortable, and I plan to uphold the tradition (even inflicting it on my children, when I am fortunate enough to have them).  Perhaps those good old fashioned country quirks aren’t so bad after all.

Wittle Fambly

“My little family, which not very long ago was disjointed and angry, has really turned around.  We’re getting closer and closer,” I said to Claire as we bounced down Hollow Road at breakneck pace.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?  Isn’t that what you were trying to do?” She asked.

It is.  I nodded, unashamed.  Eight years ago, when I got the phone call from my mother that my grandmother had finally passed away after a long, terrible battle with old age, I was barely speaking with the extended family.  We’d lost track of Aunt Deb, widowed when her husband, the golden boy of the family, died suddenly.  Her children, my cousins, had scattered.  I was holding a small private grudge against my Aunt Malone, who I felt had pretty much ignored me all the years I’d been at college just a few miles from her house.  And Aunt Malone was holding a large and public grudge against Uncle Mike for something having to do with the recently deceased grandmother’s estate, while chasing his eldest son around town trying to keep him out of drugs.  And all of this was just big stuff.  There were countless other small squabbles going on at any minute, so numerous that I couldn’t even keep track of them.

And I didn’t have to because while all this was going on I was 600 miles away in Chicago, living like a bohemian artist and generally pretending like I didn’t have family.  My mother gave me the details of the funeral on the phone.  I didn’t go.

And then Christmas came.  There were so many things going on – so many fights, so much confusion about whom was speaking to whom – that we didn’t even get invited to my Aunt’s traditional party. Everyone did their own thing.  My immediate family’s thing was boring.

I couldn’t let us do boring things for Christmas.  Mostly, though, I couldn’t let us do things without the rest of the family.  It was silly, and I was going to take it head on.  I started calling people  I made them talk to me about nothing for long stretches of time.  “How’s the weather?” It was a great start.  “Where did you do your school clothes shopping?”  Also good for killing time.  “What are you making for dinner?”  I’d stay on the phone until they couldn’t possibly stand me any more.  Sometimes I’d drop bombs to keep things going.  “I’m moving in with my significant other.”  Or, sometimes, “I’m thinking of joining a band.”   I was never thinking of joining a band, but it brought on a lecture that added several minutes to the conversation.  Little by little I whittled everyone down.  I got to know them for real.  I learned where they shopped, and what they worried about, and where they went on vacation.  I learned more about my relatives in that campaign than I had known my whole life.  Here’s the thing though: it took years.

Years.

And then Claire and I found ourselves driving at breakneck pace down Hollow Road on an overcast afternoon in March.  We had come from visiting Aunt Malone, whose children were all living peacefully under her roof.  We had seen my parents the night before, and they had seen Aunt Malone.  Cousin Rob and I had talked on the phone.  Aunt Lynn was expecting me next weekend.  Years of whittling was working, and my wittle tiny fambly was finally getting back together.  I smiled.

 

“When my sister and I frosted Christmas cookies there were always a few standard anomalies – one blue Christmas tree and one yellow snowman.”

Every time I share this quote from an old friend of mine it gets a smile, if not a full chuckle. It’s a funny quote.  A yellow snowman?  Come on, that’s hilarious.  But I don’t think it’s just the humor that has people smiling over this one – I think it’s the truth.

Everyone’s family has a few “standard anomalies,” and in the holiday season they seem to multiply exponentially. Call them quirks, call them traditions, call them whatever – we all have things we do just because they’re the things we do, and it doesn’t feel right without them.

My mother?  She has this ceramic reindeer.  It originally had a plant in it, tucked into a cavern in its back, but years later the plant is long gone.  Every year she tries to figure out what to stuff in the back of the reindeer – an elf toy, a sprig of plastic poinsettia, a candle.  What will she stuff in the reindeer this year?  We all want to know.

And my aunt?  She’s got snowmen.  Everywhere.  It’s her “thing” – she collects snowmen, and then puts them out all over her house.  And what’s even funnier?  Every year people buy her more snowmen.  It’s the only thing we can think of.

And me?  Yep, I’ve got it too.  I have to make the fish.  From the very first Christmas I can remember we’ve always had a casserole of white fish and rice pilaf in dill sauce on Christmas Eve, and I can’t go a year without it.  Even when work has prevented me from spending holidays with my family, I make the Christmas Fish for myself.  It just feels like the thing to do.

So this year, in honor of my friend and his sister and their yellow snowman,  my mother and her reindeer, and my aunt’s repetitive decor, I’m declaring quirks, traditions and anomalies officially “in fashion.”  Yep – tradition is trendy.  Let’s embrace those things we do “just because” and do them with wild abandon.  Let’s share our traditions, and try to pick up a few new ones on the way.

Tradition

I have a memory of Thanksgiving from my childhood:  My uncle and his son, who was about 15 at the time, came over to have dinner with me and my parents.  My 8-year-old self tried really hard to “play” with my older cousin – I remember us sitting on the floor rolling a ball back and forth under the coffee table – but he wasn’t’ really interested and I wasn’t really interested and it went down as one of the most boring Thanksgivings in history.

Then there was the one where all the sinks backed up and we couldn’t cook until the plumber came.

And the one where the dog got sick and threw up all over the house and we ended the night in the veterinary emergency room.

And, when i was a little older, the one where I just gave up on participating and spent the day watching an X-Files marathon on FX.

No, Thanksgiving didn’t really “click” for me until I stopped spending it at my parents’ house.  I had just moved to Chicago one October and got a retail job, so being away for Black Friday was not happening.  “But the store’s closed on Thanksgiving,” my co-worker said.  “What are you going to do for dinner?”

I shrugged.

“Come over to my house.  We’re having a bunch of people.  It’s all orphans like us – people who can’t go home.”  And then he drew me a map to his house, and we discovered he lived around the corner from me.

That became Thanksgiving #1 – and they made a tur-duck-in (a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey), and we drank, and played games, and for the first time I felt both like I belonged at the table and that there was something to be thankful for.  We had 4 more “Orphans Thanksgivings” in Chicago:
Thanksgiving #2: “Litte things” – where all the foods were “appetizer sized”
Thanksgiving #3: Deep-fried turkey and circus wine… I’m told the turkey, which they fried on the back porch, was delicious, but the wine – several bottles named after circus performers, like “tightrope walker” and “strong man” was my favorite.
Thanksgiving #4: “Orange foods” – carrot stuffing, cheese soup, mashed sweet potatoes… we got our vitamin A that year
Thanksgiving #5: “Thanksgiving comes early” – celebrated in September due to extenuating circumstances.

That year, after pulling together an entire Thanksgiving dinner in September, I was not willing to prepare and host another dinner in November.  I mentioned this to my co-worker, who over the years had transitioned from co-worker to actual friend, and he agreed.  “Come to my parents’ house,” he said.  “That’s what I’m doing this year.”

I was skeptical.  After years away from my own parents’ house I wasn’t sure I was willing to spend the holiday with anyone’s parents.  It seemed like backtracking.  But here’s what happened:

I met my friend at his house after he finished work.  By the time we had dinner and got ready, it was late – after 10pm.  We started driving the 3 hours, stopping for coffee at my favorite place, Tim Hortons.  We passed tiny upstate towns with gazebos already lit with Christmas lights.  He showed me the “landmarks” along the way – particular stores, streets with funny names.  We listened to music and sang.  When we got there, after midnight, we tiptoed in and I got assigned a room next to the wood-burning stove that heated the house – warm and cozy.  Dinner was cooked for us – for the first time in years I wasn’t responsible for anything.  The parade was on TV, and then Lifetime movies.  At least 10 other family members showed up, all bearing dishes of food.  Instantly I was part of the family.  And nothing bad happened.

Next week will be year 3 of this new tradition.  I look forward to it with a sense of calmness.  It feels like it has always been this way, and I like that.  The other Thanksgivings have faded, like all memories do with time, and I’ve adopted a forgiveness for the ones that had seemed to unbearable.  I drive on Wednesday, hoping for coffee at Tim Hortons.

Did you know…

… that seizures caused by high fever are common in young kids and frequently pass with no ill effects?  I didn’t.  So when my boss came in and said, “hey, did you hear that Tommy had a seizure?” I leaped out of my seat.   Tommy is the son of a co-worker from another department, and a common sight around the office and at the holiday parties.  He’s a ball of four-year-old energy, riding in on his strider bike or flying a toy car around the office, and for these reasons everyone loves him.  “Don’t worry,” my boss said, reading the look of concern on my face.  “Lots of kids have seizures from fevers and most of the time everything is fine.  My own daughter had two!  They were terrifying, but she’s fine.”

Still, I couldn’t get the notion that little Tommy was sick out of my head.  He’s just so darn cute, and his mom is so awesome.  After work I texted her get the details for myself, and she assured me that he was okay, that they were home from the hospital, and that the prognoses was excellent.  I took matters into my own hands, and started getting out ingredients.

Forty five minutes and two dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookies later, I was ringing her doorbell.  I handed her the box, sticker affixed to the top that read “emergency cookies.”  We had a short conversation about what had happened, and she admitted that Tommy was upstairs at that very moment karate-chopping his older sisters before bedtime.  “He’s fine,” she said.  “We have to keep him home tomorrow, and he will love eating these.”

And here’s the thing about being someone else’s superhero: you have to do it.  You can’t be too busy, or too tired, or think that your gesture is too small.  You just have to do it.  Even if you’re far away, there’s a $1 card and a 49-cent stamp.  Even if it’s late at night, we have the magic of email and text messaging.  Never underestimate your own powers, because you have them if you choose to use them.  And when someone needs a superhero, you can’t ignore the call.

Peppers for dinner…

(I swear this will not become a blog about cooking.  Or having babies.  Or weddings.  I just liked the colors.)