Categories: Nostalgia

Time Capsule

Very Nearly Wordless Wednesday Ed. 8

"There is a time for some things, and a time for all things; a time for great things, and a time for small things."

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616), Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxv.

Bereft

It is not an easy thing to lose your mother. Once, when I was three, I lost my mother in a grocery store. I remember looking at a row of canned food and then looking up for my mother and she was gone. She was there and then she was not. I can't tell you how I felt at that moment because there are no words adequate for the feeling a three-year-old has at the loss of her mother. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to get any easier with age.

For the past year or so now, I have felt that three-year-old curled up inside of me crying inconsolably, "I want my mommy." I do, too. I want my mommy. I want her so bad and I can't find her anymore. And, this time, she's not looking for me.

When I go to her house, I open her drawers and find things arranged just as she left them. Her neat, little address book tucked away in a drawer with her pens and pencils and envelopes. I read the entries in her address book written in the neatest handwriting you have ever seen. Some addresses or phone numbers carefully erased with new ones penciled in. I try to find the most recent changes. I realize what seems like yesterday was actually several years ago. My mother. Always so neat and organized. I feel like I am peering into a time capsule. Like I am being ricocheted back and forth in time. Just a few years in time, but seemingly a lifetime apart.

I run, crying out for my mother, but she is not there. She was just there a minute ago. I just looked away and she was gone. Somebody help me find my mother. I want my mother. I want her now. I run up and down the wide aisles and I can't find her anywhere. She is not rearranging her pantry. She is not busy decorating a wedding cake. She is not sitting quietly on the couch tatting. She's not sitting at the dining room table carefully writing a letter to an old friend. She's not out in the yard talking across the fence to a neighbor. She's not bringing the clothes in from out on the line or ironing shirts or watering her plants...

When I was five, I watched my mother leave me. I was the oldest of her four children and we all had pneumonia while my father was away on a business trip. When he came home, she told him that she couldn't take it anymore and she was leaving. And she left. I watched her from the kitchen window as she walked down the side street and away from our house. Away from me. I don't know where she went. I don't remember when she returned.

I'm looking out that same window now. I know where my mother is going. I know she won't be returning to me. I want to cry out and bang on the glass, but she is too far away now.

It is not an easy thing to lose your mother.

Goodbye, Miss A.

I loved my friend
He went away from me
There's nothing more to say
The poem ends,
Soft as it began-
I loved my friend.

~Langston Hughes~

Tea Time

A Proper Tea is much nicer than a Very Nearly Tea, which is one you forget about afterwards. ~A.A. Milne


As some of you may already know, I grew up with a very English, maternal grandmother and, therefore, a mother who was quite enamored with her heritage. Whenever I became ill, I was cautiously nursed along to full health with tea and toast. Tea was something everyone could drink. Even a small child could properly drink tea. While coffee was considered an adult drink that my father secretly would allow me to sip when my mother wasn't looking, tea was almost as common as water. So common, I am afraid I quite took it for granted as a child. Of course, summers with my grandmother were spent playing croquet, going for long, brisk walks and having tea and scones. The scones were not something my mother regularly made, so tea was made somewhat special because of them. That and the fact that my grandmother collected odd tea cups and saucers so that choosing a cup for tea was always a pleasure in and of itself.





My grandmother came over from England with her family when she was a child. She and her family boarded the Lusitania in the autumn of 1909 and made the crossing from Liverpool to New York. Six years later, the Lusitania would be torpedoed by a German U-boat with a loss of 1,195 persons. My grandmother's family was from Keighley, Yorkshire, England. Her mother's side of the family was native to the Yorkshire area, but her father's side, being McKniffs, was from Ireland. My grandmother was just shy of ninety-four when she passed from this earth and she still had fond memories of England and of seeing the Statue of Liberty as the Lusitania drew near New York's harbor.

I grew up in New Hampshire and was quite delighted when a New Hampshire tea company offered to send me a large tin of the tea of my choice for my drinking pleasure and, perhaps, a pleasant nod to other bloggers in their direction. Through several e-mails to and from Marshall Malone, Portsmouth Tea Company's president, I learned that he and his wife were actually "southern transplants" living in New Hampshire. Of course, this caused me to be somewhat dubious. I was uprooted from New England to the Carolinas as a teenager and had never even seen a southerner drink hot tea. On one of my first restaurant outings with friends I was served iced tea in an exceedingly large Mason jar and wasn't sure quite what to do with it until my friends noticed my bewildered look and informed me that I was supposed to actually drink from the Mason jar. I thought perhaps it was a quaint pitcher and that my glass would come along shortly. I smile now when I think back to those early days when I still thought a hush puppy was only a brand of shoe.





Before I knew it, though, the UPS man was at my door with my package of Irish Breakfast tea. Preferring my tea strong and able to withstand a more than generous amount of milk, I had debated over choosing the Irish Breakfast or the Milk tea. Mr. Malone assured me that he was quite fond of the Irish Breakfast tea himself and so sent it along to me. My girls and I were quite anxious to try our newly acquired tea and, unwilling to take the time to make scones, we took out a bag of Pepperidge Farm Chessmen and set about making a pot of tea. I have to say that we were quite delighted with our tea that day. And the next day. And the next. I'm afraid we will be ordering more tea from the Portsmouth Tea Company before we know it. A cup of it sits to the right of me at this very moment.

The Irish Breakfast tea is strong, although, instead of the suggested steep time of three minutes, I couldn't keep myself from steeping the leaves for a full five minutes. Having said this, the tea was not bitter in the least. It was full of flavor and stood up well to milk. For those considering converting over from coffee to tea, I think you will find this tea worthy of consideration. To Mr. Malone, I thank you heartily for sending along this wonderful tea. It will complement my great-grandmother's recipe for scones quite well. Here is her recipe:

Scones

2 cups flour
3 Tbl. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
6 Tbl. shortening
1/2 cup milk
raisins

Sift dry ingredients together. Cut in shortening. Stir in milk. Add raisins.
Roll into circle about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into pie wedges. Brush tops with a
beaten egg. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 400* for 8-10 minutes
until golden brown.

On a side note, I believe that the Malones are a homeschooling family. I can't think of a more delightful business for a homeschooling family to undertake. Unless, of course, they opened an antiquarian book shop that also served their delicious tea.

Summer

Photo Meme: Beautiful (Thursday Challenge)


Summer seems like a blur to me. A somewhat colorful blur, but a blur nonetheless. I fear that I am quite exhausted by the whole ordeal. When I attempt to wrap words around the past summer, I end up speaking in terms of events, destinations, hours on the road, loads of laundry, accommodations, flight plans, gas prices and junk food consumed.

When I was a child, summer lasted forever. Long afternoons were spent reading books out of doors with my faithful dog nearby. Days were strung together in a warm haze playing with my sister and brothers in the woods and fields surrounding our home. A week or two was spent having tea and scones with my grandmother. I felt a peaceful security while camping in the cool, New England woods in a large tent with my parents and siblings so close and the soft pine scented breezes blowing through the canvas. Every summer, we drove to visit my (great) Auntie Geri and Uncle Leon and their friends Pops and Grace at their cottages at Hampton Beach. When we wanted to go swimming we found ourselves at Sandy Pond or Forest Lake. These things filled my summer with riches I find myself inadequate to describe.

I don't remember worrying about what I was going to wear, where I was going to sleep, or what I was going to eat, although, I will confess to wanting to know how much longer it would take before we were "there yet". It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that I never even bathed the entire week we were camping. I just took a swim every afternoon in the cool, sparkling water of the lake.

What is the difference between then and now? I know that most of us believe the difference lies in the fact that we are adults now. We have to keep the laundry going, make sure we have reservations, feed our families while traveling. And, yes, we have to know how long it will take to get where we're going, if for no other reason than to report back our ETA to the children every few miles. I have thought about all of this and something has become clear to me.

When I was a child, it wasn't about where we were going or what we were doing. It was about who we were doing it with. It was all about knowing that my grandmother would play game after game of Yahtzee with me every afternoon I was with her. I couldn't wait to go to her house and spend time with her. I always slept on a cot near her bed and woke to her musical alarm clock. "Oh! What a beautiful morning..."

I couldn't wait to meet Pops at the Hampton Beach playground where he would let me come in and play even when I grew too tall to "officially" be allowed in. Oftentimes, I would spend the time with him talking about things I sadly have forgotten and watching the thick, sweet smoke curling away from his cigar. My Auntie Geri would take long, early morning walks on the beach with me filling my tin pail with all manner of precious seashells. My memories of the beach are mixed with the smell of fresh paint from the summer my Uncle Leon painted the cottages.

I remember sitting around the campfire in the dark of night roasting marshmallows with my parents and siblings. Later I would listen to the night noises outside our tent and the snores of my father a few feet away from my cozy sleeping bag. I would wake to find my father cooking scrambled eggs and homefries over the fire.

My sister and brothers and I would spend rainy summer days playing in the enormous attic of our old, Victorian home scaring one another, getting reacquainted after months spent in classrooms separated from each other. In good weather, we would tramp through fields of grass taller than we were playing hide and seek. Occasionally, we would find a bobolink's nest in the deep grass.

When I was a child, it was about the people and relationships I had with them. I know that I can't become a child once again, but I think that, if I blink a few times and clear my eyes, I can see the people and not just the sandy suitcases and the prices at the pump.

Sorrow & Thanksgiving

It would be so much easier if I could find a poem that could tell you of the ache that is in my heart, but that would be too easy. It wouldn't be creating something that was mine to turn over and over in the sunlight and in the rain. Such things as this may seem like silliness to most readers and, indeed, I keep reminding myself that it is silly to cry over such things. Yet, still I weep.

I have two beautiful girls. While crouching around in the cramped, hot attic today trying to find the boxes of summer clothes for my girls, I stumbled upon a great cache of little girl clothes. I have been handing down my girls' outgrown clothes for years, but I knew there were a couple of boxes still up there that I could never seem to locate. Today I found about five boxes of clothes. Big boxes. They were right there like they were mocking me for not having seen them before. Boxes full of baby and toddler clothes. Sweet little church dresses, colorful play dresses, little bubble outfits with snaps for easy diaper changing. Oshkosh overalls with little flowers embroidered into the material. And matching shirts. Onesies and thick, cotton training pants. My little girls' clothes.

How did these manage to escape the grand parade of handed down clothes that is still marching out our door and into other homes? I know. I know all too well and therein lies my heartache. These were clothes for my next baby. For the one to come. For that sweet little child that would smell of something not quite of this earth. Something like the smell of warm sugar cookies and that heavenly smell that you aren't sure whether it begins with you and ends with the baby or begins with the baby and ends with you. Or if it has a beginning or an end at all.

When I first found the boxes and brought them down from the attic, I was so happy for my friend. She just had her sixth child and I knew that the hand-me-downs were starting to get tattered in that family since the last five babies were all girls. I kept telling my friend that I thought I had some stuff up in the attic. And, of course, I did. I said it casually since I have been handing down clothes for years without too much thought. I have seen God bless me in so many ways that it wasn't difficult to know that he would always provide for me and my family. Everything I have is God's and I often consider the fact that he might redistribute things at any time, but I don't worry about it. Why would God quit taking care of me now? This doesn't have anything to do with my faith that God will provide for me in any situation. If I were to tell you of all the ways God has blessed me and carried me through the storms, I wouldn't be able to finish this post. Perhaps I should think of posting about such things in the future. It certainly would keep my blog more frequently updated.

My sorrow comes from the fact that, as I sort through these clothes, I see my babies nursing, cooing, smiling, crying, rolling over, sitting up... Looking back at me with their sweet blue eyes and chubby cheeks. My sorrow comes from the fact that ten years ago I had my last baby and I didn't even know it. She was born on Fathers' Day. There was no sorrow that day. I woke up a little after nine that Sunday morning and four hours later, I had a ten pound three ounce baby girl. Chubby little Clara. A little sister for Lily.

I wish I could be as happy today as I go through these clothes. Some of them still smell vaguely of the soap I used back then. That's just not fair. But it is what it is. I am washing them for my friend. Washing out the smell of my babies. Some things you just can't get back.

I Will Remember You

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Rossetti








Where The Soul Of Man Never Dies

To Canaan's land I'm on my way
Where the soul (of man) never dies
My darkest night will turn to day
Where the soul (of man) never dies

(lead)
No sad farewells
No tear dimmed eyes
Where all is love
And the soul never dies

(tenor)
Dear friends there'll be no sad farewells
There'll be no tear-dimmed eyes
Where all is peace and joy and love
And the soul of man never dies

The rose is blooming there for me
Where the soul (of man) never dies
And I will spend eternity
Where the soul (of man) never dies

The love light beams across the foam
Where the soul (of man) never dies
It shines and lights the way to home
Where the soul (of man) never dies

My life will end in deathless sleep
Where the soul (of man) never dies
And everlasting joys I'll reap
Where the soul (of man) never dies

I'm on my way to that fair land
Where the soul (of man) never dies
Where there will be no parting hand
Where the soul (of man) never dies

Lost and Found

We just had a thunderstorm pass over here and there is a mist rising up from the ground. It is evening. Someone is grilling. I can smell the sweet smell of cooking meat mingled with the smell of damp moss and tree bark. I'm alone at home. Will has taken the girls to a baseball game with several other families from our congregation. Time alone is a rare commodity for me. And, yet, my heart still feels a tug towards my children and my husband when we are apart.

One of the nice things about being alone is that I get to listen to "mommy's music". Right now, I am listening to the Guster album Keep It Together. I'm eating a banana and drinking orange juice. Is life really supposed to be exciting? I surely hope not because I don't know if I could handle it. I take comfort in the peace. In the familiar.

Now I am wondering where that mentally retarded man went to. The one who used to ride his bike to the curb across the street from our house and merrily ring his little bicycle bell. He had a nice smile. I haven't seen him in quite awhile.

Things are always changing around me without my consent. Sometimes without my knowledge. I suppose this is for the best. Maybe God just likes to step in and remove some of the clutter for me while I am otherwise occupied. I do this to my children's rooms every so often. They don't really need to form a bond with their Happy Meal toys. Sometimes they remember something, though. Something that wasn't a cheap piece of plastic, but I cleaned it out anyway knowing that there was another child out there who needed it more. I wonder if that is where that man went. To another one of God's children.

I suppose that is part of this life. Time keeps moving me forward and I lose things without even noticing. Some people spend their lives striving for something they can't quite put their finger on. I know what I am striving for. I just keep misplacing little things along the way. Funny how I assume they were really mine to begin with.

Part Four: Time and Eternity

XXXVI

I LOST a world the other day.
Has anybody found?
You'll know it by the row of stars
Around its forehead bound.

A rich man might not notice it;
Yet to my frugal eye
Of more esteem than ducats.
Oh, find it, sir, for me!

Emily Dickinson

Real Life

I know, I know... I haven't been very faithful in posting lately. Someone please flog me.

When I first started this blog, I wanted it to be an outlet for the side of me that I felt I had been neglecting for too many years. In my younger years, I had dreams of becoming a writer and a photographer. I preferred writing poetry to prose and I loved toting my Pentax K1000 around with me wherever I went. I have a few poems and many photographs that are near and dear to my heart from those years. As the years flowed forward, though, I quit taking the time to write down the little word songs in my head. I always thought that I would remember them later, but with two small children running around my thoughts were nearly always replaced with more necessary mental and physical activity. Fortunately, the camera was never so displaced during those years. I have beautiful shots of my children as they experienced the world for the first time. I am thankful for these.

As my children have grown a bit older, though, I have found myself wondering and longing for the dreams of my youth. Of course, they seem so much more enchanting than climbing mountains of laundry, collecting tumbleweeds of dog and cat hair, disrupting the natural cycle of dust in my home and other such futile tasks. I wanted to create a place where I could separate myself from these things. A place where I could be "me". And, so, here I am.

The problem is, I am not only more than a mountaineering, tumbleweed-collecting, dust displacer. I am the mountaineering, tumbleweed-collecting, dust displacer. I have been cutting myself into parts that are never equal to the whole. The simplified and idealized version of myself doesn't acknowledge the parts of me that are just as valuable and create a clearer picture of who I really am.

Why did I ever want to create an outlet for only a part of me? I know that there is that part of me that has been neglected for a long time, but it has been by necessity. It does not mean that it is dead or that I have to separate it from the whole for it to survive. How on earth, could it survive without the whole?

So, today, I am here to tell you that I am a homeschooling mom of two beautiful girls. That I am a wife. That I engage in seemingly futile work like laundry, vacuuming and dusting. That my house is never clean and I am more often teaching math lessons than taking photographs. That I am more likely to write a grocery list than a poem. That you will find me more often at our church building than at a photo gallery or a poetry reading. That this is not just a photo blog or a poetry blog or homeschooling blog or a mommy blog. That this is about my life and, from now on, it is as real and complete as it can be.

Having said that, here is a picture I took yesterday:

Out of the Box

For those of you who've decided to read along, here I am. I have a terrific headache and my children have been bickering for most of the afternoon. I can't wait for spring to arrive. Being indoors is about to do me in. Lily has finally decided to work on her hook rug and Clara is playing her lap harp. Unfortunately, she is playing Christmas songs. *sigh*

Well, I have put up a gallery for my photographs and added a link to it over there to the left, for future reference. There are some pictures that I took with my trusty, old Pentax K1000 and had to digitize, a couple taken with my newly acquired Canon EOS 20D, but the bulk of them were taken with my Epson PhotoPC 3000Z. I have had my Epson for four years and my Canon for only a few short months, so most of my favorite digital images are from my Epson. I am anxious to take more pictures with my new Canon, though. The images are so much better in quality.

Something that has become quite apparent to me is that I take an awful lot of pictures of children. This has given me cause to think. (As if I needed one.) Among the obligatory pictures of birthday parties, holidays, vacations and visits to relatives, the ones that tend to jump out at me are the ones of the children. I shouldn't be surprised since I have always enjoyed being with children. I taught in a Montessori school and worked as a nanny before I had children of my own. The thing is that I think it goes even deeper than that.

When I was a child, I was considered quite serious, anxious and shy. I now attribute that to the fact that I was almost overwhelmed with sensory input each and every day of my life. My seriousness came out of the fact that I was in a constant struggle to maintain myself in the face of what amounted to a cacophony of sights, sounds, smells and feelings. Even though I was the youngest in my class, I was considered more mature than my classmates mostly because of my silence.

I have always had a very detailed memory of my childhood from the time I was about two until I became an adult. I don't believe the people who claim that you cannot remember anything earlier than three or four years of age. I remember things that had nothing to do with my parents and my parents are often surprised to know, so they are not family memories that were somehow implanted into my memory later in life. I am so familiar with my childhood that it often seems as though I can time travel.

Before I had children of my own, my photography seemed to revolve around attempting to capture what ended up being almost haunting images. It was like I was trying to capture the way I perceived the world because I knew by then that most people didn't experience things the way I did. When I had children, suddenly I was completely absorbed by them. I took pictures of them constantly trying to capture them in little time capsules. Taking pictures of them seemed to be all that really mattered, as far as my photography was concerned. Recently, though, I have come to realize that I am blending my desire to capture the world as I've experienced it with capturing the experience of childhood itself.

One of my favorite photographs is of my nephew wrapped tightly in a hammock while we were on a camping trip in New Hampshire. I see myself in that photograph more than most. His small, serious face. The comfort of being wrapped cocoon-like in a quiet place. The way the sun dapples his face in warmth. A place to daydream uninterrupted. I am still trying to find these things.

Motto

Diarist.net Spark

What would your motto would be for the place you're at in your life right now? Is it different than it would have been five years ago? 10? 20?

I thought this writing prompt was interesting because of my instant response to it. My first response was what it would have been five, ten or twenty years ago. I immediately thought of the Rolling Stones song You Can't Always Get What You Want. When I was between eighteen and twenty-eight-years-old, I remember feeling comfort in the chorus,


You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You just might find
You get what you need


I even remember riding around my college campus in my roommate's red Mustang convertible with the top down, this song blaring and me singing right along. During this period of my life I always felt acutely lost.

When my husband and I married, I no longer felt lost, but our first ten years together were quite difficult and I often felt very much alone. Marriage is a difficult thing. I remember still clinging to the chorus of this song during this period like it was almost a spiritual anthem for me. I could sing along and gain not only comfort, but strength from the words and music.

A little more than five years ago, though, I started feeling like I not only didn't have what I wanted, but I wasn't getting what I needed, either. I remember dancing to Paula Cole's song, Where Have All The Cowboys Gone? with my young children nearby and feeling totally disconnected. Completely lost.

Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?

Oh you get me ready in your 56 Chevy
Why don't we go sit down in the shade
Take shelter on my front porch
The dandy lion sun scorching,
Like a glass of cold lemonade
I will do laundry if you pay all the bills

CHORUS:

Where is my John Wayne
Where is my prairie song
Where is my happy ending
Where have all the cowboys gone

Why don't you stay the evening
Kick back and watch the TV
And I'll fix a little something to eat
Oh I know your back hurts from working on the tractor
How do you take your coffee my sweet
I will raise the children if you pay all the bills

(Chorus)

I am wearing my new dress tonight
But you don't, but you don't even notice me
Say goodbyes
Say goodbyes
Say goodbyes

We finally sell the Chevy
When we had another baby
And you took the job in Tennessee
You made friends at the farm
And you joined them at the bar
Almost every single day of the week

(Chorus)

I will wash the dishes while you go have a beer
Where is my Marlboro man
Where is his shiny gun
Where is my lonely ranger
Where have all the cowboys gone
Yippee yo, yippee yeah

Today, though, I was listening to the Jars of Clay remake of America's Lonely People and I couldn't help but think that my life is so good today. My husband and I will have been married sixteen years this summer, we have two beautiful children and I no longer feel lost or lonely. I think this would come as close to a motto or, perhaps I should say an anthem, as anything for my life today.


Lonely People

This is for all the lonely people
Thinking that life has passed them by
Don't give up until you drink from the silver cup
And ride that highway in the sky

This is for all the single people
Thinking that love has left them dry
Don't give up until you drink from the silver cup
You never know until you try

Well, I'm on my way
Yes, I'm on my way
Well, I'm on my way back home

This is for all the lonely people
Thinking that life has passed them by
Don't give up until you drink from the silver cup
And never take you down or never give you up
You never know until you try

Heraclitus

Heraclitus
Translation of Callimachus' 2d Epigram

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept as I remember'd how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of gray ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

William Cory

My father-in-law has died. I want to tell you all I know about him, but I am too tired inside just now. I love him. He used to call and ask for my husband when he and I both knew that Will was not home. I would tease him that he just liked talking to me until it slowly settled in that he actually was calling to talk to me.

When my girls were babies, I would step out onto the deck of our condo where I could keep an eye on them without having to worry that they might coo loud enough for their grandfather to abruptly end the conversation saying that I needed to take care of my baby. It wouldn't have taken much of a coo to provoke this response from him. That was just the way he was. I remember leaning on the deck railing watching the sky slowly turn pink as the sun slipped below the buildings in town and talking to him about so many things. Listening to him about even more things.

When we moved to our present home, the girls turned two and five that summer. It wasn't as easy to leave them to their own devices when Grandpa Sparky would call. I became adept at putting videos in the VCR and looking sternly at the girls as I stepped back to their playroom to listen to whatever my father-in-law had on his mind.

As the girls got older, a stern look was enough to allow me to step away to the room that had been transformed from their playroom into their bedroom. I would lean against the ladder of their bunk beds and look out the window watching the sky turn ruddy as the sun slipped behind the trees in our neighborhood. Standing back there, listening to him and occasionally teasing him to get him to let go of something that was upsetting him was comforting. Sometimes he would be angry about something and I would have to divert his attention or, if all else failed, I would tell him how much I loved him. This never seemed to fail to quiet him. He would often brusquely tell me that he loved me, too. And I did love him in all his ways.

I would often be left standing in the dark looking up at the stars through the tree limbs from the bedroom window. I would always tell him that I loved him when we would say our goodbyes and he would always tell me that he loved me. Sometimes, I wasn't sure if he really did or if he just felt obligated to say the words. A part of me knew, though, that he never felt obligated to say those particular words.

The last time I spoke to my father-in-law was about a week before he died. I told him that I loved him and he told me that he loved me. That is enough. That is everything.

Twelve + Thirteen

I was going through some pictures the other day. Pictures that I had neatly packed into a clear, plastic tub in an effort to be more organized. Unfortunately, the tub was thrown into the spare bedroom that is the home to all the homeless things in this house. Lily wants desperately to have this room for her very own. She dreams of it every day. I, on the other hand, find that this room looms as something I would rather run from than challenge. There are boxes and papers and boxes of papers and books and outgrown clothes and things I am even afraid of in there. Lily, though, has visions of what this room will be. It will be uniquely Lily. Unfortunately, uniquely Lily doesn't really seem to go over well with those who actually pay the mortgage on this house. I am fairly flexible, but I have had to dissuade her from such color options as all black, red with various horrifying trim colors and dark blue with equally horrifying trim colors. This is a small room with one window. It needs all the help it can get in the lightening and brightening department.

Lily will be twelve this summer. While going through the pictures in this plastic tub, I came across a picture taken when I was thirteen. My best friend, Dee Dee Fortin, took it and it is dated May 1979. I looked long at this picture. It was familiar, but suddenly I was seeing it through a different lens. My mother had redecorated this room and moved my sister into a different bedroom so that I could have a bedroom all my own. I remember her bringing wallpaper books home to peruse as she redecorated the entire house. We lived in an old Victorian house on the nicest street in town. A street lined with huge elm trees and wonderfully different, but equally nice houses from the same era.

I vaguely remember how it all came to be, but I really have no recollection at all of choosing wallpaper with columns of what appear to be blue cabbages up and down them. Neither do I remember choosing a glaringly blue carpet or a powder blue bed ensemble with more ruffles than any dress a Southern belle might wear. What I do remember is coming home from school one day, when I was twelve, and my mother opening the door to what was now my bedroom. I remember the feeling of freedom it evoked. No little sister muss and fuss. Just me and my Donny and Marie eight-tracks playing as loud as the player could manage. (Mind you, these were given to me by a friend who was a Donny and Marie fanatic and, at the time, I was under the impression that one must play what one has available. I actually much preferred Rod Stewart.) I felt like I was in some heavenly realm and I never wanted to go back to sharing a room with anyone. Of course, when I went off to college it became a necessity. I then married Will and now only occasionally dream of having my own room.

I decided to set this picture aside to show Lily what I looked like when I was about her age; hoping to give her some insight into the fact that I was not always a thirty-eight-year-old mother. When the girls came home from their piano lessons, I brought out the picture to show them. There I was, posed on the window sill of my bedroom. Thirteen. Skinny. Wearing my favorite shirt and framed by columns of blue cabbages. I was wondering what Lily's response would be, but unprepared for it. Lily was speechless. I looked at Clara and Clara spoke what Lily was unable to.

"Mommy, you had boobage!"

Now I think I remember why that was my favorite shirt.

The Friday 5

What was...

1. ...your first grade teacher's name?

Mrs. Desrosiers. I was so shy in her class that I would refuse to come up to the table at the front of the room with my reading group to practice reading. I really loved Mrs. Desrosiers, but I will never forget the day that she literally pulled me out of my desk and dragged me to the front of the classroom so that I would finally learn to read. Once I was up there and my dignity returned, I realized that reading was not only easy, but also great fun! I remember that we used the 1962 version of the Dick and Jane first grade reader, Fun With Our Friends, and I remember seeing the word "said" a lot. Looking back on this, I have to say I love Mrs. Desrosiers even more today. She wasn't young when I was in first grade, but I would like to find someone in her family to thank.

2. ...your favorite Saturday morning cartoon?

The Bugaloos

(Okay, so it wasn't exactly a cartoon, but it was my favorite Saturday morning fare.)

3. ...the name of your very first best friend?

Elizabeth, my sister. When I was in first grade, though, I considered a girl named Tracy my best friend. She used to meet me at my house and we would walk to school together. My mother told me later that she was from a poor family. I do remember my mother often taking the time to brush Tracy's hair and put it up in bows, but I never remember thinking she was poor or neglected. I just remember her being my best friend.

4. ...your favorite breakfast cereal?

Freakies

(In case you're interested, the Snorkeldorf character was my favorite.)

5. ...your favorite thing to do after school?

When not watching Batman re-runs, I spent a lot of my time lying around in the grass on warm, sunny days reading books, daydreaming and occasionally weaving mats out of iris leaves. I also loved to ride my bike and try to find interesting places to go to. During the colder months, I spent time outside sledding and ice skating until the sun went down and then I would lie around the house reading, daydreaming and writing stories.

I have a picture of my first grade teacher and my friend, Tracy, taken when my mother came to visit one day at school. I will upload them tomorrow, if I can find them.

Me (with Mrs. Desrosiers)

Tracy (wearing glasses)