Category: Seasonal Musings

Sick Day

I called out sick today — something I never do. I am sick — but was actually worse on Christmas eve — sneezing and achey. Christmas day was not much better nor the next two days — but knowing how crazy things were at the store I didn’t call out, being the responsible employee that I am.  Shoppers/returners have calmed down and my usual niche of responsibility (schools, corporate customers, authors) is quiet during this week so today, I honored my stuffed head and scratchy throat with an overdue day off. Lovely.

I lingered in bed, getting up only briefly to walk a pleading Tetley before retreating back under the quilts with a cup of tea and a book. Bliss. I so rarely get to see the day’s light in this room — fractal shadows of winter branches flickering across the ceiling.  Relishing the quiet of the house, I wander downstairs to make another cup of tea and leisurely nibble something from the fridge. Except to retrieve the mail, I never stepped out of the house.

I could have dragged myself in today but who would benefit from my miserable, hacking presence? I have to remind myself that I am not saving lives — no one will die because of what I do or do not do in a bookstore. (well, unless it’s the Heimlich maneuver!)

Working

My 16 year old daughter started her first job in the real world yesterday. I dropped her off and watched her walk through the dawn-lit, still empty parking lot to the small family-run cafe. Driving home I recalled my own first job at 16.

Nature’s Kitchen was a storefront Indian restaurant. It was just me and the cook, Singh – a gentle man with a young family back in India. He loved beer and the Average White Band. As soon as the last patron left, he cranked up a tape and we’d clean up to the blaring funky beat.  No table cloths on the 15 or so tables, just yellow paper placemat with scalloped edges, one set at every place. I remember this detail because for years I kept a little love note on a torn-off piece of placemat from an admirer I liked back. He probably scrawled it while slurping his mulligitawny soup. There were crushes, celebrities and crazy people who came in regularly. The glove lady was most memorable. She wore elbow length gloves and came back into the kitchen to boss Singh around. She wouldn’t place her order with me and only allowed him to bring her dishes out – probably because she had crowed at him to wash his hands first. She always finished her meal with the Indian pudding — a scary looking cream-of-wheat concoction  in a battered frying pan, kept warm but also drying out, at the back of the black stove. Thinking back, I’m surprised anything out of that kitchen met glove-lady’s clean neurosis.

Waitressing became my go-to job. It was easy to walk into a restaurant and get hired. Quick and cash, tips that back-in-the-day, did not get reported. I waitressed in restaurants, bars, country clubs and hotels for over ten years. My final job was at a fancy hotel chain as a unionized banquet waitress. I was relieved to no longer have to rattle off salad dressing choices or beers on tap. Sometimes I could go through the whole night only saying one word to the customers as I rounded each table with a heavy pot: “coffee?” Lifting the metal lids, balancing two plates on one arm, a the third in hand slid quietly in front of the diner, while at the next table, my colleagues did the same. It all felt so choreographed. Most nights, I enjoyed moving efficiently through the room in my little black polyester uniform with white ruffly apron, the night planned out – a beginning, middle and end around courses of a mass meal. Finally, worried I’d be doomed to this work for the rest of my life, I swore waitressing off and headed to Japan with the idea of learning how to make seiketei – Japanese rock gardens. But that’s another story.

I wonder how many of us finally land a way to make money that is really right for us? Something that gives us pleasure — or at least, does not defeat us body and soul? And for how long does it remain so? For now, I watch my daughters new pleasure at making bacon-egg sandwiches and coffee and hope she always finds a way.

A Quiet Thanks

I like Thanksgiving. Gathering with loved ones to reflect on gratitude, if only for a moment before digging into the scripted menu. What’s not to like about that? But this year, I am delighted by our plan for the day: Molly and I will search for an open Chinese restaurant and share a meal together, ordered off a menu. Later, stuffed with dumplings and rice, we will meet up with Rob and tumble across the street to share pies and wine with our dear friends from the neighborhood. I am grateful for the luxury of this day and my daughter’s emerging rebel spirit. Really, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays — but sometimes, the timing just isn’t right.

Molly is tired after an activity packed autumn with barely an evening to herself. And Friday launches retail madness month with harried, long work days. We are happy to duck out of any requirements – no place to go, nothing to make. Oh, enticing invitations came our way – and I even considered hosting myself – but when Molly said, “I don’t want to go anywhere.” my heart soared. Yes! I don’t either.  So why should we? The flip-side of the lack of doting relatives around to show up at Molly’s plays, concerts, graduations, etc., she and I are free of that feeling of requirements. We don’t have to go anywhere. We can do whatever we want. My siblings are the same as me – although we do keep Christmas day precious – they dutifully, and I hope with some glimmer of joy, make the trip out of the city to celebrate at our house – a homage to the only kid in the family.  Today, nothing is required of us and for that and so much more, I am grateful. I will reflect on that as I dig in to my … hmm, maybe I’ll have sushi.

Just a Story

The other day I ran into my friend’s mother, L. We’ve known each other so long and we have such a mutual affection, she is also my friend.  L is also a suicide widow — her youngest child was my daughter’s age when her husband killed himself. Her daughter and I became friends just after this happened and I recall the shadow of sadness that hovered over their home. But the other day when L and I stood in the bookstore parking lot chatting, she said: “It was 36 years ago. You know, now when I tell the story, I think ‘isn’t that terribly sad’ as if it were someone else”.  Time has turned an awful tragedy into a story she tells dispassionately.

For most of my life, I compulsively filled pages of my journal. I still have them all and sometimes crack a tattered notebook for a glimpse of what I was seeing and feeling during a certain time and place. But not much. I don’t really need to remember every joy or more likely, angst.  I recall wondering when I was in high school, why I felt the need to write things down, half-believing that if I did not record it, it didn’t really happen. Oh, if that were true! Now, when I think about writing — about N’s suicide, my bout with cancer, M’s premature birth — I realize for me, writing is a kind of alchemy.  As if by focusing on telling it, the once-unbearable loses the power to haunt me. The balm of time gets speeded up, a healing distance is created.  In telling the story, it becomes just a story. And perhaps, also remembrance.

Writer’s Block

This morning, I’m stumped. I write a sentence, start an idea and delete. Inspiration eludes me. I try to be disciplined about posting to this blog at least once a week and usually, something is percolating by the time I sit down at my keyboard. Something.

Nature never lets me down – some sweet moment in the yard sets me off on a trail of thought leading to something else I can put into words. Yesterday I picked a salad’s worth of arugala from beneath the newly fallen layer of leaves but beyond that, I don’t know what to write.

Arugala gets me thinking about food. I love to read about food but hesitate to write about it since I’m not really a foodie. But I do make a delicious and always different granola. I need to make a batch today as this bowl is the last of it. Oats mixed with a neutral tasting oil, honey, a dash of vanilla and cinnamon spread on a baking sheet in the oven. Turn often until browned to your taste. When cool, add the rest — nuts, raisins, coconut, flax and wheat germ for an even healthier boost.

So easy to make and much cheaper than buying it. I’ve also started making my own yogurt (also featured here sliding in next to my granola) seduced by this video from this site The Daily Grommet I sometimes visit when I should be doing other things.  It’s a simple thermos kind of thing easily improvised – but I was a sucker and bought the whole shebang. It came with two packets of yogurt mix made from the milk of New Zealand cows and did make 2 perfect batches – but buying more of these packets is pricey and defeats the purpose a bit. I’ve used a few recipes from other websites and have come up with some delicious, although still slightly runny batches.

If I wasn’t slightly embarrassed to tell you what I was reading I could write about it. But put it this way: I am reading said unnamed book (currently on the best-seller list) while I watch television (Jon Steward, Stephen Colbert) – it’s not deep or particularly good and we’ll leave it at that. I did read a delightful book (not in front of the tv) recently by a Jennifer Wilson who took a sabbatical from her life in the States to go live with her husband and two little kids in the little town in Croatia where her ancestor’s came from. Running Away to Home  often made me laugh out-loud – she’s very funny with a self-deprecating humor. Jennifer affectionately captures this tiny little village and the characters who live there. I appreciated the glimpse of Croatia – so much a part of my life still tangled with memories of sadder times.

Were I traveling of course there would be no shortage of inspiration, but for now I am content with armchair journeys and following the delightful accounts of not one, but two of my friends’ trips to Thailand. Coincidentally, they were both there in the middle of record rains and floods — but still had great adventures. Check them out.

So there, I’ve written a post. A reminder to myself to just start writing.

Wisdom in a Wall

The leaves of our big maple tree seem to be plunging from their branches. I can see other trees in the distance also raining foliage.  Perhaps shedding quickly lest more damage be done by premature snowfall. Were such a thing possible, it looks like a mass tree anxiety attack manifesting in this strange storm of spinning, torpedoing, floating leaves. Just watching the chaos almost triggers one in me: my heart rate increases and jaw sets.

CHANGE seems set on fast speed today. There is catching up to do. (although we actually gained an hour with clock shifts) Or else? Why the anxiety? That’s the question that gets me. It’s an abstract sense of things happening out of control — and maybe those things are not good. That’s my default. But, rather than let my day get railroaded by this irrational anxiety, (triggered by falling leaves?? yikes) I will finish yesterday’s project of rescuing a tree from bittersweet.

Yesterday, with my heavy-duty lopper and a few choice cuts with a chain saw I cleared the lower trunk of the oak.  The woody vines were so thick, this strangling sucker must have been there for years. How had I missed it?  The tree is set by the road, ambiguously close to my neighbor’s overgrown plot and surrounded by the privet hedge and a sprawling forsythia we mostly ignore. Not until yesterday did I notice the trunk of this oak tree was being swallowed — the orange berries gave the culprit away.

For over an hour I tore at and chopped at the vines, pulling branches and years of debris away from the trunk. I followed the trail of bittersweet, yanking, pulling, cutting — and uncovered a beautiful stone wall. Smothered for years, these great old stones set tightly together, have been here, invisible beneath the bramble.  A forgotten foundation weathering crazy seasons, storms and bittersweet. From my window, I cannot see the stone wall just beyond the hedge, but I know it is there and remembering it, my heart slows. The leaves continue their frenetic fall. I breathe easy. 

Too Soon

Unlike yesterday’s leaden start, this morning’s light is bright and stunning. From the warmth of my bed, newly made with a winter quilt, I push the curtain aside to see the tree-tops from a nearby wood. Swaying in the wind, still-green leaves shiver on the branches they clung to through yesterday’s freak snow storm. Downstairs, I peered out at the yard, surveying the damage: a large branch down, fallen on our raised bed. It broke off of a tree we’ve discussed taking down so we could have more light for the new veggie patch. Nature has done the work for us. The only ‘line down’ is our laundry line that had been attached to ‘Weepy’ our 10 year old willow tree, now laying across the lawn. Weepy had been struggling these last few years, only a few sad sprouts of live branches, an almost silly spray of green. Clearly dying, it still supported our drying clothes and towels through the seasons, its distance from the house was an easy pull on the line from the porch.

After donning rubber boots, I stepped outside into the slush to retrieve the newspaper. The frigid air smells like winter. Squirrels frantically scramble around and up trees, their cheeks fat with supplies. In the distance I hear a flock of geese protesting as they fly, “Too soon! Too soon!”

Changing Seasons, Stocked Shelves

Foliage-drama is lacking this autumn. Summer droughts and rains, hurricane Irene are all reasons cited for this ‘blah’ fall. Even the usual spectacular reds of my maple tree have yet to appear, the leaves dropping more brown than red. But the flip side is that days are mostly warm and we’ve yet to turn the heat on or even start a blaze in the fireplace and there is still a meal’s worth of swiss chard to harvest from the garden. 

But it’s time to get ready. Today, we will cover the draftiest old windows on this house with plastic.  I’ll retrieve wooly sweaters and corduroy pants from a plastic bin I happily packed away back in May. With far less pleasure, shorts, cotton blouses and flowing skirts (I rarely wear – but somehow, always imagine I might) will get tucked into storage until next spring.

Like the squirrels, I have been hoarding sustenance for the long, dark nights ahead – making piles throughout the house of books to see me through the season.  I picked up Ann Patchett’s Truth & Beauty from the sale bookshelf at the library (my bus-man’s holiday) because I enjoyed State of Wonder and this ode to her friendship with fellow writer Lucy Grealy has often caught my eye. I also picked up A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah for $2 – a former best-seller I never read. At work I have snagged a few advanced reader’s copies including Thrity Umrigar’s new The World We Found and a first novel by Ayad Akhtar, American Dervish described as “A stirring and explosive debut novel about an American Muslim family struggling with faith and belonging in the pre-9/11 world.”

Bring on the cold nights and light the fire, I’m ready to read.

To Every Season

Something about autumn – my pining for summer has (mostly) faded and changing leaves, temperature and wardrobe triggers a vague hankering. I too, think about changing. Oh, only abstractly.  My daughter is a junior in high school so I’m not going anywhere yet and savor these last sure two years of her at home. But then… I have begun to think: what next?

I would also be a bit of a fool were I not to ponder this question.  With the business in such a state of flux, who knows how much longer I will have my lovely gig at the bookstore? I should think of alternatives. And I like to.  ‘Alternative’ is a way of being that I embrace – that’s the direction I’d head. This long spell of diligently working 40 plus hours a week, maintaining the mortgage, the life – the stability my daughter craves and loves, has had plenty of joys – and is hopefully not quite over yet. But still healthy, strong and with my wits about me, it’s not terrible for me to imagine doing other things to bring in the bucks. I remind myself not worry too much about the reading-gadget wars and online shopping closing down this era in my life — and have started reading up on raising Alpacas…

Soup’s On

Between work and my daughter’s insane school-sports-social schedule, the week was frenetic and I am still spinning. Tuesday night was exciting at the bookstore as we hosted the launch of the Echook Memoir I app – a digital publication. (It includes a piece by me!) I played host and also participant, mingling with a lovely group of people. Delightful.

A certain amount of busy-ness is usually a good thing for me, forcing me to be productive and energized. But I also like being home so welcome today – Saturday. I am mostly free to clean the mess and chaos of the house and cook my way through a few weeks of vegetables stored in the fridge.

I began last night by salvaging a head of escarole lodged behind some left-overs. A few leaves were just beginning to freeze from being flattened against the back. I cubed up a red onion remaining from a meal I don’t remember, threw in a crazy amount of minced garlic, scrubbed up a few farm carrots and potatoes with olive oil, then added the roughly chopped escarole, stirring until it wilted. Salt, pepper a box of vegetable stock simmered until the potatoes and carrots were tender. A can of white beans added just before we were ready to eat. Molly even had a bowl, although she rejected the bitter green that inspired the dish in the first place. Soup season begins!

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