8 Thoughts

Today, I managed to collect very, very random thoughts in eight completely unrelated paragraphs. Will is 13 years old and will be a freshman in high school next year. When he was six months old, we brought him home from South Korea, and he was the length of his now 13-year-old shin. Liam is 11 and spends more and more time in the bathroom with hair gel. Quiet time in the bathroom is no longer a science experiment with a toilet brush; it's working out how to get the handsome-dude-thing going for middle school.

If there is a tiny bit of mold on the crust of a slice of bread, is the whole piece moldy? When I worked in an Italian deli, I learn that with a chunk of nice, expensive cheese, the mold is expected and trimmed. And the chunk is salvaged. I'm betting on the same being true for a slice of bread.

Two men are in the quiet room in the library talking aloud. In my quiet room in the library. In my quiet room in my library. I sound like a two-year-old. As do they.

I recently read that writing about emotions is healthy for the reason that journaling gets them out of your head and onto paper where you can re-process the meaning and you might discover the real meaning isn't what you have held in your head. Like dumping raw reality that's pumping through your brain onto paper, sifting it around, categorizing it, then re-interpreting the information, perhaps into a truer reality. I think of a brand new deck of cards. The stack looks fine, even beautiful, just out of the box perfectly ordered. But, they aren't ready to be played yet. With a few shuffles, they are re-aligned for their purpose.

One fall day, a woman died and left behind instructions for her ashes: They were to be spread in her garden, where she had spent a good portion of her life. Her husband refused help from the gardener to spread her ashes. Her husband spilled some of her on the garage floor. The gardener swept her up. The husband spread the rest of her in her favorite flower bed. Knowing the ashes would blow away in the approaching winter winds, the gardener covered them with leaves. Seeing the accumulation of leaves, the husband raked them up and dumped them in a compost heap at the back of their property. The gardener retired. Plans will be made. Plans will be changed.

After a Sunday afternoon matinee with friends, we had a long drive home in traffic. What should've been a 20-minute ride became an hour. When we dropped off our friends at their house, their daughter, who occasionally gets a little carsick, hopped out and flung herself spread eagle on the ground. I so badly wanted to go home and do the same thing. Just lay flat on the ground and stop the world from spinning. Let everything on our schedule just fly right over me as I lay still. In the winter time, I love to make snow angels and to lay silently inside their perfectly shaped skirts and wings. I have yet to flop spread eagle on the ground in the scurry to the end of the school year, to the beginning of summer. Somehow making snow angels justifies this action.

A young writer wrote an article about her writing ritual: Up at 5:00 a.m. Meditate for an hour. Run 10 miles. Sit down to write. Mine was mapped out similarly: School drop-off. Workout. Sit down to write. But I snuck in "water plants" before the workout. And that water reminded me that I should empty the dehumidifier in the basement; we'd had a little water earlier in the week from an unknown source. I stepped on the rug in the back room in the basement, and it was soaked. While she was meditating and running, I was schlepping tubs to the garage and calling a plumber. And, it was a self-inflicted leak. I didn't unhook the hose from the outside faucet last fall and the pipe burst. Hence, the dumpster outside our garage. I wonder what she wrote that day?

Trinity Sunday, our pastor calls children to the front for children's time. Liam is with other kids to the side of the sanctuary making crafts as Sunday school has ended for the year. He joins the small group on the steps leading to the altar. To get the meaning of "Trinity" across, our pastor sits next to the kids and asks them to describe him or herself in three words. Most hesitate, unsure of the right answer. Except for Liam. With a grin on his face, he says something to the pastor, but her mike doesn't pick it up. I suck air. To keep the audience in the loop, the pastor, also smiling, repeats Liam's three words through her microphone: "Naughty, crazy, and generous." And something to the effect of, "And Mom is holding her breath!" She closes the lesson with the reminder that no one, nor God, can be summarized in just three words. Amen.

D.C. Barriers

So much subject matter and research material. So little time have I carved out to write. I went away for five days the end of March to write. I was successful in playing the character of Linda Malcolm the whole time. Five new stories from that trip have been reviewed by my writers’ group, and those stories await my edits. I’m tempted to snag one of those and send to you, but you won’t see them until the book comes out! Instead, I’m reflecting…

Our family went to D.C. for a few days over spring break. Will was supposed to go there with his class in March, but it was over the weekend of his State Gymnastics Championships. The District left me with a twisted impression that I can’t shake.

The headlines in the newspaper the Wednesday we arrived in D.C. addressed concerns about security on the south lawn of the White House. According to USA Today, the secret service wants to move crowds back away from the fence enclosing the south lawn. Around 100 people have tried to access the ground in the past three years; of those, 95% had a history of “mental illness or emotional disturbance.” Construction of a larger and stronger fence is expected to start later this year.

Yet when we followed the sounds of a band that were coming from the south lawn, we saw a crowd of people streaming along the driveway right up to the steps of the White House. We asked a National Park Service volunteer what was going on: the annual garden tour of the south lawn – free to the public with no pre-reserved tickets or background checks.

Two hours later we returned at our assigned time, free tickets in hand, and passed through a checkpoint set up by the Secret Service, much like airport security. We stood a few feet from the steps where the Obamas departed from the White House for the last time.

The United States’ capital of freedom had sharp shooters pacing back and forth on the rooftop of the White House.  Secret service agents stood shoulder to shoulder with National Park Service rangers throughout the property.  At the Rose Garden.  Outside the Oval Office.  Next to the White House Kitchen Garden.  Blocking the entrance to the hidden children’s garden. “Have a look, take a picture, then move along.”  No dawdling near the White House.

 The Oval Office

The Beast, the presidential state car, was parked on the drive behind ropes, guarded by secret service agents.  The small garden nooks of outdoor seating areas brought a movie-reel to mind: one of past presidents and their families casually gathering in their backyard.  The Kennedys, Johnsons, Nixons, Fords, Carters, Bushes, Reagans, Clintons, and Obamas.  This, the people’s house, which those families had the privilege of living in the last few decades.

Throughout the surrounding area, we frequently saw uniformed secret service agents like those at the White House; they were dressed like police and all wore bullet-proof vests. They had insignia on their vests that identified them as secret service detail. At the Treasury building, the guard was armed with an automatic gun in hand. Not slung over his should, but at the ready.

While human security was thick, the presence of barriers around all federal buildings – as well as some private – was heavy. As a gardener, at first I was impressed with the size of the planters on sidewalks along the buildings. They were gigantic, four to six feet long and either rectangular, square, or circular in shape. The vessels are made of at least 6-inch thick concrete, reinforced on the inside with rebar, not visible to tourists. The plaza area immediately outside the glass entrance to the FBI building had several planters creating obstacles for people to navigate through to get into the building; their purpose is to stop vehicles from ramming through the glass entryway.

Block after block was lined with these barriers.  Some were filled with grasses, but many had expired tulips or volunteer greens from last year.

Around one building, the idea of concealing barriers as planters had been completely abandoned and each planter was filled to the rim with gravel.

The 1995 Oklahoma City truck bombing was the precursor to these dystopian planters.  The concerns over security from that domestic terrorist act to 9/11 and present day threats has left a dark cloud over the city representing our country’s freedom.  The visual tension created a shadow of palpable, foreboding fear.

When Mercury is in Retrograde

As I was sitting at the table yesterday morning working on a project, a bird thunked into the living room window. I know robins nest in the rhododendron tucked tightly in a corner next to the outer living room wall. My first thought was that I hoped it wasn’t a mama bird; then I wondered how in the heck she flew up into the window. I intuitively knew she had not been coming in for a landing but rather taking off, for surely a winged mom flies directly to her home. It was a navigational error on take-off. That’s when the thought first struck: Is Mercury in retrograde? I typed the question into Google and the first hit was a big square box with the word “YES” in it and followed by “Started April 9, 2017, ends May 3, 2017.” I sighed deeply, so that’s it.

My mom works as a cook at a senior center, and she can forecast a full moon days before its dome peeks over the horizon. People’s behaviors change. And it’s not pretty. Mom has adapted a “No surprise, it’s a full moon” attitude when people go a little haywire. And one might think this is crazy, how could the moon impact us when it’s so far away?

Have you seen a coast at low tide then at high tide? Every 12 hours at low tide on Wingaersheek Beach in Gloucester, MA, the waves retreat and more than a football field’s length of new beach extends outward. Then beyond that an impressive sand bar, the length of another football field. In total you can walk out 200 yards from the coast line on new land. At high tide, the new beach and sand bar completely disappear.

As someone who grew up land-locked, I just don’t get how this happens. A little research provided the answer that I still don’t understand: the gravitational tug-of-war between the pull of the moon and that of the sun creates tides, like clockwork: two high tides and two low tides within every 24-hour period. And the timing changes by a few minutes each day so high and low tides never occur at the same time as the previous day. It’s science, and sometimes this right-brained writer just needs to accept left-brain scientific facts.

As I accept the concept of tides, I don’t doubt the impact of a planet in retrograde. Of course, Mercury doesn’t literally go in reverse. For the three weeks a few times a year that it is in retrograde, those are the times it looks like it’s going backwards because the earth is speeding by it, I think. Again, quoting science is not my strong suit. The retrograde is similar to the perception of two moving vehicles where one is going faster than the other. The slower one is like Mercury in retrograde: it only appears to be going backwards.

Mom feels the full moon; I feel Mercury in retrograde. Crazy little actions – mine and others – dot my days. Communicating is tough. Thinking slows. “I can’t get out of my own way.” The weight of life sits squarely on my shoulders and can’t be shrugged off. The ability to compartmentalize tasks, feelings, and thoughts disappears. It all rises to the top like thick cream on fresh milk; fluid and unable to be pieced apart.

Yet once I confirm little Mercury’s retrograde, I function better. Previously baffled, I knowingly nod. Liam’s chortle with a mouthful of milk, of course, resulting in sprayed milk all over brand new Class A and Class B scout uniforms. (He was wearing B over the top of A… of course.)

The 150-year-old Christmas cactus crashing to the floor during a game of hide-and-seek: bound to happen.

Trying to quick-fix a problem on the scout tracking software at 10 p.m. and failing – creating a bigger challenge… I should’ve known.

Multiple scout applications missing signatures, information, crossed t’s and dotted i’s? Naturally.

On the list goes on.

Little annoyances, one after another, after another.

May 3rd, my friends. May 3rd.

Until then, I’ll keep cleaning up the little stuff, try to do one thing at a time, put the cacti branches in water to root them, and counter my over reactions by – not cussing – just muttering, “Mercury.”

Happy Hump Day.

Rock-hard Resilience

Over the last couple months, my mind has been filled with rocks. To help Liam’s den fulfill one of their elective badges as Webelos II Cub Scouts, I led a couple days’ worth of activities on rocks. We talked about the great Pangaea, when all the continents nestled together; then the scouts plowed folded beach towels together to simulate plate tectonics crashing and forming mountains. We spread chocolate frosting on paper plates and slid graham cracks against one another on top of it to simulate plates at a fault line. The chocolate was the molten lava on which the plates float.

The second time we met to examine volcanic rock at the ocean’s edge in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It was a shocking discovery for this Midwesterner who grew up with fossilized limestone in the glacial heartland to discover that my current home sits on igneous rock from 550 million years ago.

Our first stop was Devereaux Beach where all the rock is intrusive: formed thousands of feet below the Earth’s surface. Having been rolled by the waves, the granite rocks on the beach were smooth. We found xenoliths in rocks: as magma cooled it ensnared other rocks. A mile from this beach, we climbed Castle Rock and watched the high tide waves crash into the sides of it. Jutting upward, yellow-ish rhyolite and black basalt heaved in what was the sides of a very old volcano. The rock dome, being some 30-feet high, was jagged; its height protected it from the pounding surf unlike the smooth rocks at the beach.

This morning, tucked in next to my plants under the living room window, I notice a five-pound intrusive igneous granite rock with a beautiful gray-white xenolith running through it. New since we were at the beach Sunday and hauled in, I'm guessing, by Liam.

At the top of our stairs beach treasures sit on a small table, including six smallish rocks from a beach in Kingston, Massachusetts. My collection of heart-shaped rocks is in this mix too. All of them are smooth – as though for years they had been rolling on the sand by wave after relentless wave.

I walk down the stairs of the deck and see in the flower garden to the left a line of more smooth rocks that have been collected from Cape Ann beaches over the twelve years we have lived here.

I remember back to the days of going to Massachusetts General Hospital for chemo. I would often visit the roof garden on the 8th floor. At the entrance sits a bowl of smooth rocks. Each one big enough to nestle into the palm of my hand and to fit into my pocket.

As the scouts compared rocks from the igneous collection that I purchased for our outing to the rocks we found “in real life” on the coast last Sunday, the colors matched but the finishes were completely different. On cue, the scouts new why: the rocks on the beach had been subject to erosion by water, wind, and sand.

With all this rock thought, I realize why I collect them. Their smoothness is comforting. Their mass is solid. They have been through a giant rock tumbler that has left them far from their original state, and this new form is beautiful.

They wouldn’t be this way without every hurricane that threw them into the rocky shore line, every giant wave that rolled them on the ocean floor, every grain of sand that scratched them.

Through adversity and trauma comes indescribable resilience.

Paralyzed by Disbelief

A young man cashiering at the express lane in the grocery store. A well-dressed, middle-aged black couple paying for six cans of cat food. A white man with long, scraggly, gray hair and clad in clean jeans and leather shoes holding a basket with a few items. And me, holding a loaf of French bread. The woman explains to the cashier that the cat food isn’t ringing up correctly. That according to the sign on the shelf, it is on sale. She speaks with a non-Bostonian accent, one farther away than Iowa or Georgia. An accent originating from across an ocean or a sea..

The young cashier is confused. The back of the long-haired man starts a disgusted fidget. I breathe. It’s a late Sunday afternoon at the grocery store.

The discussion continues between the woman and the cashier. The long-haired man solidly, yet in a monotone matter-of-fact voice, states, “The price is whatever rings up. Just pay and get out of here.”

The young cashier’s head drops so his eyes lock onto the cat food.

I cringe and freeze, not wanting to exhale. If I don’t breathe, maybe this moment won’t be real.

The black woman tells the scraggly-haired man to mind his own business.

Her husband turns to the man and explains in a kind and apologetic voice that the price isn’t ringing up correctly.

“Just pay and get out of here.”

The husband’s rational words are meaningless. Wasted breath.

I’m locked in place but thinking I should be moving. Interrupting that hate-filled word snare that crossed over his lips into public space. I want to catch it and hurl it back into his face. But I remain motionless and silent, while my brain engages him. “What would your mother say if she heard you talking like that?” Really, I didn't want to know what that answer might be.

The black woman tells the cashier she will take the cat food to the customer service desk. She turns and confronts the man face to face. Once again, telling him to mind his own business, via, “Who the hell do you think you are?” Her arms are wide open with closed fists, one around her purse and the other around the bag of cat food. She’s fierce and indestructible.

As the man turns to the cashier, I see his profile. Probably late 50’s. He has a gray beard and mustache. He pays and leaves. I pay and go find the couple.

I ask them if they are alright. They thank me for my concern. I don’t know what else to do. Her strong eyes of a tiger lock on mine, those of a mown over sheep.

I leave shaking and in tears, knowing who the man is even though I’ve never met him.

Snickerdoodle Birthday Treats

Liam turned 11 in early January. He has one of those tricky birthdays right after a holiday. Just days following the faded lights, sounds, and presents of Christmas, we lurch into birthday mode. The ridiculousness of having two major celebrations so close together pushed me one year to celebrate Liam’s “half birthday” when he was around five. I probably read about it in a parenting magazine; for children whose birthdays are close to a major holiday, celebrate their half birthday – six months after their actual birthday. This celebration felt forced, false, and fabulously difficult to explain to aunts and uncles. The confused look on Liam’s young face confirmed that we would roll best with one birthday celebration, which would be on his birthday. Not one for a lot of noise and chaos, Liam isn’t into big parties. Often we are traveling in the days around his birthday. This year, he had a rather forceful demand: no traveling by air or car on his actual birthday. (Did we really do that one year?) He also wanted to be with his buddies in Chicago on his actual birthday. Our friends there have two boys, and our four boys have grown up in a sweet stair-step friendship; her boys are older – a freshman and a senior in high school. Despite several hundred miles and only seeing one another a couple times a year, the boys fall into sync when they are together. The connection may be cemented day-to-day via hand-me-downs. “That shirt is from Craig? AWESOME!” Those boys are never too far from mind. “They are kind of like my mentors, aren’t they, Mom?” Yes, Liam.

After a celebration with family in Iowa and another celebration with our friends in Chicago – highlighted with a dinner at a Japanese steak house where the food was cooked on a grill in front of us – we headed home. In the following days, Liam couldn’t believe how talented Keith was. Who is Keith? We wondered the same: the chef who cooked for us at the restaurant.

On the flight back to Boston, I told Liam we could send in a birthday treat for his class at the end of the week. That worked for him. Snickerdoodles, please. A perfect peanut-free choice for school. One little boy in Liam’s class has a severe peanut allergy. As I thought about it, I worried. We are a peanut butter family: PBJ sandwiches, peanut butter with ice cream, peanut butter and apples. I don’t bake with peanut butter, but just to be safe, I scalded every bowl, spoon, beater, cookie pan, and spatula with hot, soapy water before it touched the cookie dough. My hands cracked open and were raw after the episode. However, there were two dozen perfect, peanut-free Snickerdoodles on the cooling rack. Even the last batch was not burnt.

Liam took the container of cookies with him to school the next day. I had also bought five pounds of strawberries, Liam’s favorite fruit, for him to take in but didn’t have them cleaned in time for drop-off. I was content with the Snickerdoodles; then an 8 a.m. appointment I had in the morning was canceled – giving me a window of opportunity to clean the strawberries and get them to school. More water on the hands; they were as red as the strawberries by the end of the washing and stemming, but I could feel the gold stars piling up on the Mom Chart! Everything was clicking! I dropped off the see-through plastic container of strawberries at the front desk with delivery directions.

Throughout the day, I smothered my hands with Eucerin cream to help them heal from the prior day’s peanut-free baking episode and the morning's strawberry cleaning. At pick-up time, a smiling Liam came around the corner of the school carrying the empty containers. “I didn’t know you were sending in strawberries!” I told him it was a last minute surprise for him and asked him how it went.

“Great, but Teddy is allergic to strawberries, so he sat in the hallway while we had strawberries and Snickerdoodles.” No!!! “It’s OK, Mom, he was fine with it – and Snickerdoodles don’t have peanuts, so he had his cookies in the hallway.”

I sent in immaculately clean Snickerdoodles for Teddy, accompanied by five pounds of poisonous fruit. My gold stars melted away.

Food, Clothing, and Shelter

“Linda Malcolm writes.” That’s what the purple box on my Google calendar says on Tuesdays. The box encapsulates 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. And, I know in that block I can write a Hump Day Short; schedule it to be sent a few minutes after midnight on Wednesday; format the story on my website; and then link it to my Linda Malcolm Writer Facebook page.

This Tuesday, I was late. I made it out the door at 11:00 a.m. I blame my delayed start on the bags scattered in my path between the kitchen and the back door.

Looking for a place to start “normal” after a week away for winter break, my mantra Saturday morning was “food, clothing, shelter… food, clothing, shelter…” Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

That morning, I opened all the bags from five days of skiing: the dirty underclothes, the dirty ski clothes, the ski bags with dirty helmets and boots, the bag of dirty gloves and balaclavas. With 40- to 60-degree ski conditions, it was warm for skiing. The last day I skied without gloves and with all vents in my ski pants and in the arms of my wind breaker unzipped. I unzipped the front of my wind breaker and the long-sleeved moisture wicking shirt to get a breeze. I was playing the part of a real spring ski bum.

And, with a good gust of wind at the top of the mountain, I felt like a flying squirrel as my vented clothes caught the wind and puffed me up as if I only needed to extend my arms out and skim over the hill on the breeze, rather than down the slope on snow that was nearing the consistency of mashed potatoes.

I watched teenage boys snowboarding shirtless and skiing in shorts and teenage girls snowboarding in dresses with leggings. It was bizarre. None of us Malcolms could take off enough under-layers to ski without sweating. Hence my goal on Saturday of getting these bags open and handing their contents over to the Laundry Maven.

The Maven had the washer spinning, the dryer humming, and, of course, the drying rack out blocking the hallway. By Saturday afternoon, clean wool socks, balaclavas, snow pants, snow jackets, and underwear were all hanging in plain view to dry. She smiled proudly at her days’ efforts. Then she left the house.

Sunday lunch I slung out four different meals from the stove across the wide island, calling out names as the plates flew. It took what seemed like hours to feed our small family of four. That evening, I tackled a menu and made a plan for Monday: to lose myself in grocery shopping and cooking most of the day so we would have food the rest of the week. I pray to God this works because the days of being a short order cook are causing angst clear to my core.

I seem to have meandered well away from where I started. As I was saying…

This Tuesday, I made it out the door at 11:00 a.m. I blame my late start on the bags scattered in my path between the kitchen and the back door.

I thought I had just unpacked everything Saturday?!?! The bags lurked around the door like puppies ready to make a break for it when the door opened. Four made it out: two of the writer’s and two of the errand runner’s. The remaining bags pulled at me like tentacles of an octopus begging for attention, even though I had mentally tagged them with “later.” Not counting the four I was taking with me, nine remained. All but one were of my doing. And that one was Will’s empty ski bag laying collapsed on the laundry room floor.

Come forth the hypocrite… here I am! I chide my kids for leaving unpacked bags strewn through in the house. Particularly when they contain smelly clothes or food. My bag from a morning workout at the Y is one of those sitting and waiting. A few weeks ago when I went to see La La Land with a friend, I bought Junior Mints. At the end of the movie, I put the open box in my bag. I’ve been pulling creative mini-sculptures out of there for a couple weeks now, culminating with this one.

According to my own guidelines, that would qualify as food left in a bag. Thank goodness I didn't find it in my of my son's bags.

Never mind. Sunday was "clothing" and it’s all washed. Monday was "food" and we won’t starve this week. Today, Tuesday, when I finish writing, I will return to work on our "shelter," including clearing and emptying bags from the all the paths I've walked in two short days.

I cannot wait until Hump Day.

Flying Like an Ostrich

Since November, I’ve been flying like a wide-eyed ostrich caught in the jet stream. At 40,000 feet. At 500 MPH. All legs, all neck. And a flabby core that can’t keep the gangly body aligned. Moving those little flaps of wings as if they should carry this body the way a 777 carries its own weight. Praying it smoothens out but only feeling turbulence and ongoing tumultuous motion as a big flightless bird tumbling ass over appetite at high altitude. Tuesday I felt the painful ping of muscles in my thighs and the burn of cold air in my lungs while I plodded and huffed up hills. I have been walking on flat land for weeks, but the hills make me work harder -- physically and mentally.

Panting up a hill, I realized that I’m not built to fly at high altitude nor to cover hundreds of miles in such a short span of time, but I have strong legs. And I can consistently put my feet one in front of the other. Mentally. Physically. Soulfully.

Taking one step at a time on ground I can feel beneath my feet, I find more calm, more power, and more endurance.

Wishing you solid ground this hump day.

Chicken and Rice Soup

Tuesday, Liam woke up with a headache and a canker sore. With the consequences of staying in bed until 9 a.m. and no electronics all day, he stayed home from school. At 3 p.m. when Will came home from school, Liam went to the screens. He must have interpreted the ban as effective during the hours school was in session. A Nor’easter-like rain sat over our house that whole day. It felt more like an English winter day than a New England winter day. Knowing the forecast for Tuesday, on Monday I had grabbed a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store – chicken and rice soup sounded good. It’s one of my few back pocket recipes which three out of four Malcolms will eat. When I got home, I took the plastic lid off and saw what had been hidden under the large label on top.

I don’t usually get rotisserie chickens from this particular store. I double checked the label to make sure this was a whole chicken. It was. I know what a featherless chicken should look like; this wasn’t fitting that picture. I turned the meat around looking for proof that it was a whole chicken. Indeed, I found puny wings hiding behind an over-sized breast and tiny lower legs attached to gargantuan thighs.

This creature had never walked a day in its life. It had been a living rotisserie chicken, somehow raised to grow an abundance of the best white and dark meat. My mind has been playing word association games ever since I bought it. Barbie. Dolly.

I felt discombobulated as I pulled the meat off. What sicko raises birds like this? (Thanks to Dad for that noun...) I tossed the bones and skin in a soup pot and filled it with water. It was good not to be looking at it as a whole.

Onward. My goal was to make chicken stock Monday and chicken soup Tuesday. Monday evening, Bill was sitting at the kitchen counter on a phone call with China as I was pulling the chicken meat off the bone. I quietly rustled the carrots and celery out of the fridge and took them to the laundry room where I laid them on the lid of the washer. Out of earshot, I snapped three carrots into thirds with my hands and walked them back to the kitchen and dropped them in the pot on the stove. I returned to the laundry room and broke three stalks of celery the same way and dropped them in too. Back in the laundry room, I pulled an onion from my baker’s rack, quartered it in my hand with a paring knife, and put it into the pot. No one likes watching that cutting-vegetables-in-the-palm-of-your-hand procedure. Mom has cut fruit and vegetables up for years like that. I watched the pot come to a boil then turned it to low and let it simmer away for an hour. From there, Bill took it to the porch to let it cool overnight.

With Liam home Tuesday, I recruited him to help cut up the vegetables for the soup. He doesn’t like cooked carrots, so we left those in big rounds so that they would be easy to pick out. Liam decided the celery should be finely chopped and took great pride in completing that job. I turned my eyes to my own cutting board to chop up the onion. I didn't want to watch every move Liam made with the 8” chef’s knife. But he had the right grip on it: thumb and fore-finger steady on either side of the blade, with the other three fingers wrapped around the handle.

I brought the soup pot containing the broth in from the porch, took off the lid, and inhaled. The only word I can find to describe that smell is comfort – a result of simple ingredients and a little time. I strained the old vegetables and chicken bits out of the broth, and we put in our freshly chopped veggies, together with a half teaspoon each of rubbed thyme and black pepper, plus a bay leaf. The broth rolled in a gentle boil until the flesh of the carrots easily gave way to the paring knife. I added a couple cups of cooked rice and the chicken; brought it back to a simmer; and added some salt. The grand finale was a small once-around-the-pan squirt of lime juice. It’s the something-something that makes this soup a little different from other chicken soups. Liam and I marveled at how good it was as we slurped up bowls of it as a mid-afternoon snack.

I knew I wanted to write about chicken and rice soup today, but I wasn't sure why. I thought it might be a piece about responsibly raising animals for food, but it’s not. I thought it might be a piece about Liam wriggling a day at home out of me, but it’s not. Bottom line, I think it’s about comfort.

I can depend on this soup. There are no surprises with it. It’s sound nutrition. It’s nothing fancy. It’s an easy dish to share with friends; it only needs to be heated up. I can freeze it at any stage -- as a completed soup, just the basic broth, broth with veggies, or seasoned broth with only rice.

And, in the future, my chicken and rice soup will only be made with a well-balanced real rotisserie chicken.

Lunar New Year 2017

Yesterday morning, as I was bent over heaving a box out the back door, bright colors caught my peripheral. I looked back and up at the wall near the wood frame inside the house. Four bright Portuguese clay fish, hung in a tight little school, reminded me that my children are Korean and that the Lunar New Year is approaching – even though I’m still chasing the last of the Christmas decorations throughout the main floor. When we traveled to South Korea to bring Will home in 2004, we learned about the symbolism of animals in Korean culture. One story that stuck with me was about fish: Since fish never close their eyes, pieces of art depicting fish are often found displayed near exterior doors to keep watch and protect the people inside. So in the house of Malcolms, we have four fish facing the back door that were made by an artist in Portugal, and they are protecting two Koreans, an Englishman, and an Iowan.

This year, the Lunar New Year is January 28th. The celebration is based on the lunar calendar, so the date changes every year. For the past couple years, we have barely acknowledged this holiday as we’ve fallen into the patter of Malcolm weekend life. Whether robotics class, band lessons, skiing, or gymnastics – or maybe just hibernating on a cold Saturday afternoon, we haven’t ventured out as a family to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Admittedly, it may have even passed unnoticed for a year or two.

When Will and Liam were in grade school, every year I went into their classrooms around the Lunar New Year to do activities with their classmates. I’ve taken our traditional hanboks, worn on special occasions, into school for the teachers and students to try on. I’ve made traditional tteokguk, rice cake soup, with thirteen 1st-graders. The rice cake sticks to your ribs, and Koreans eat it on New Year’s Day so they will have good luck and a fresh start in the New Year. I’ve recreated Korean kites, which are often flown by kids on New Year’s Day. I showed the kites to Will's 4th grade class, then gave them a tub of materials to make one themselves, only there were no directions. That was the last class project I did with Will.

Looking back, I see these activities were two-pronged. First, I wanted my kids to know the history of and to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Second, and most importantly in this setting, I wanted their classmates to learn about the Korean culture. Their classmates were intrigued. When Will was in second grade, I went into his class every day for a week so the kids could work through five stations of Korean culture crafts. I have a tub in the basement with all the original patterns and samples, but I’m crafted out, and the boys are in middle school now where they use less Elmer’s glue.

This year, with 11- and 13-year-olds, we are going to carve out time to celebrate our sons’ culture – in the greater scope of how other Asians celebrate. While museums in the area celebrate the Lunar New Year with indoor performances and crafts, we will be heading to the Chinese New Year parade on February 12th in Boston’s Chinatown. The event description says there will be lion dances, drumming, and fireworks, plus a culture village – scant words to describe what will surely be an authentic celebration that appeals to every sense.

In Chinatown, our sons will see reflections from faces very different from their everyday lives. And, our little multi-cultural microcosm will celebrate what one-fifth of the world’s population celebrates every Lunar New Year: Family.

Writing in 2017

Christmas decorations are slowly coming down. Very slowly. It could happen more quickly if I spent the day at home carting tubs up the stairs to fill then back down when they are fully packed. But I’m not doing that. I’m spending most of the day in my favorite place: the quiet room at the library. And it’s only Monday. Generally, Tuesday is my day to write at the library. On most Tuesdays, I spend two or three hours writing a Hump Day Short, formatting it to send to you, adding it to my blog, and linking it to my “Linda Malcolm – Writer” Facebook page. I’ve been sending the Hump Day Short to you for a few years now, and other than you and the readers on my mailing list, plus a few loyal readers on Facebook, not many people have read my work.

Late last winter, I felt winded from the want to write for a larger audience and the slowness that this process was taking. Actually, I felt that process was non-existent because the only writing energy I was putting out was just enough to send out a weekly Hump Day Short. My creepy perfectionist tendency was sneaking up on me: if I can’t get my writing in front of a bigger audience, why continue?

That was short-lived. Within days, I’d chopped that ugly saboteur off at the knees and re-spun the story. In March, I submitted two pieces of my writing to two different magazines. In short, I explained to the editors that for six years I have been ebbing and flowing between parent and writer, writing weekly Hump Day Shorts and sending them to my 200-plus subscribers; then dutifully posting those pieces in my on-line storage unit. I have it all in one spot: nearly 300 stories sitting out there on lindamalcolm.com. In an open vault waiting for the day something might happen with them.

Neither piece was published, but the rejection letters were friendly. One editor asked me to submit more of my writing. The particular pieces I submitted weren’t perfect for the publications, but the editors weren’t mean about the rejections. I took another swing at that saboteur. It wasn’t as painful as I had thought to receive a rejection letter.

In April, I joined a writers’ group in Boston. Once a month, we critique one another’s work. Each of us sends in about 15 pages of writing prior to the meeting. Then, sitting around the table, each author listens to critiques of their work without adding to the conversation. After the critiques from the five or six other authors, the author of the work joins the conversation. That first meeting was unnerving. I sat and listened then managed a meek “thank-you” when they finished. I don’t remember much of the feedback; I just know that they took my work seriously – as I did theirs. Now, nearly a year later, I crave those comments back from the writers sitting around the table. I know being in this group is the propellant I needed for the next stage of my writing: publishing.

When I first joined, I sent a smattering of stories to be critiqued. From the Laundry Maven and bras to cow manure and enduring pain, the scattered subject matter left the group scratching their heads at my goal of publishing a collection of stories. “You need a theme” was the consensus.

Now, with feedback from the group – and over the years, from my small dedicated tribe of readers -- I’ve decided to publish stories that pivot around Iowa. Whether comparisons of my kids’ life in the city to mine on the farm or reflections on butchering chickens or teaching Bill the aromatic difference between cow manure and pig shit, the touchstone of these stories is Iowa.

How goes it, you might ask? Now, I’m culling stories from my on-line storage unit and writing some new ones that have been only ideas simmering on the back burner. I’m working with a company that helps independent authors publish. To do these things means I need more time than the Hump Day Short allotment.

I’m pushing my days toward hours of writing, editing, and researching. Consequently, the Christmas decorations gathered in the dining room will take longer than a day to put away. Perhaps, there will be more eating out and taking out. Maybe I will distribute the reins of the house and encourage a more consolidated effort to keep the house functioning; spreading more of the power to the hands of everyone living under the roof as I see how capable Will and Liam are at 13 and 11 years old.

Can you hear me justifying more time with my fingers at the keyboard? Since 2010, I’ve spent concerted and sometimes painful energy on the smallest of steps. Early on, the words “I’m a writer” did not pass easily over my lips. The answer to “what do you write?” tripped right behind that first line.

Today, I sit at a table with writers where I’m still surprised to be included, where we identify ourselves as authors – complete with published books and working manuscripts. Perhaps that’s why when at the meeting the leader says, “Which author would like to go first?” I fling my arm into the air.

From Lefse to Lutefisk to Matzo and Challah... and beyond: Iowa Culture

I'm getting anxious to go to Iowa for Christmas. While roaming around in my writing files late last night, I found this. "I come from a meat and potatoes family. Sunday dinners of fall-apart braised roast beef and mashed potatoes. Like my grandpa and my granddad, I ate my potatoes yellow with butter and heavily dotted with pepper. Mom's home canned green beans, frozen corn, and baked squash rounded out the dinner. Plus sliced, white, buttered bread.

In fact, I come from a meat and potatoes state. Over 20 years ago, while driving home from Luther College one Sunday morning in the fall, my ’68 Ford LTD broke down on the hills south of Decorah, Iowa. Through the rear-view window, I could see steam rolling out the back of the car. The car cost me $200; I had paid more for my first camera. Within minutes a young farmer pulled up behind me. He knew a mechanic that might be willing to come out on a Sunday to tow the car in and fix it for me. The mechanic came and loaded up my car; the farmer offered to take me to his house where I could wait with his wife while my car was fixed, so I hopped into his pick-up truck.

A whiff of Sunday dinner hit me when he opened the door to his house. His wife was pregnant with their first child. Dinner was ready and pleasant words to the effect of “you might as well eat with us” were spoken in the Iowan farmer way and were followed by grace. And fall-apart braised roast beef and mashed potatoes. How ironic that this couple had the same Sunday dinner as my family! Two hours later, the young farmer gave me a ride to the shop, and I was back on the road.

At Luther College, I was surrounded by blondes with blue eyes. The student population was largely Lutheran and of Scandinavian decent. I hopped in whole-heartedly and ate up this beautiful culture. During the holidays, I added a Norwegian tradition to our family’s Christmas. I boiled potatoes not for dinner but rather to mash with flour, sugar, a little salt and a splash of cream. Pulling enough dough off to roll into a pastry resembling a tortilla, I dry-fried it in a cast iron skillet. When it came out, I buttered it, sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on it, and shared this amazing culinary phenomenon with my family. Lefse.

I joined in with the Norwegians as they joked about lutefisk. Though I had never seen, smelled, or touched this gelatinous dried, then soaked “delicacy.” I wasn’t even sure if it was real. My most-worn earrings in college were traditional Norwegian Solje, made of silver with plated gold dangling spoons that were meant to reflect evil from the wearer. I didn’t wear it for protection, but it was the first combination of silver and gold I wore years before that was fashionable.

Studying Judaism my junior year of college introduced me to another wonderful but truly foreign culture. The books my professor assigned brought the Jewish culture to life. In particular, I remember First Encounter by Bella Chagall, who was born to a Hasidic family in White Russia and who was the wife of the painter Marc Chagall. Through a series of short stories from a child/youth's perspective, Chagall opened up a window to her life in the early 1900's. The book's theme of family was relatable, but the celebrations and traditions of her Jewish culture were eye opening -- and beautifully foreign.

In my senior year at Luther, I traveled to London, Paris, and Amsterdam during January, Luther's "J-term." That trip confirmed it: I was a culture junkie. Seeing people born like me from a womb but through language, food, and beliefs -- life -- they were so different from me, from one another. My infatuation with different cultures was intense. As I traveled, I naively wished I had my own culture. One as vibrant as the Norwegians and the Jews.

Then I hit a wall at the age of 43 that turned my perspective upside down. In June 2009, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I would go through a year of surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy. During that time, I made a choice not to travel – fearing germs when my immune system was weak. I wouldn’t be flying to Iowa during treatment. Not for Christmas. Not for Easter. Not until June 2010.

Through those 12 months away from Iowa, I realized that lefse and lutefisk nor matzo and challah would ever be at the core of who I was. Rather, the stoic, stubborn, practical nature of being an Iowan would give me the leverage to “do” that year. Finally, I found my cultural core, and it was well supported by Mom's braised beef and potato dinner. As my hair grew back in the spring, I realized my culture as an Iowan was one of the many across the globe, just as complex and rich."

I wish you love, peace, and joy as you celebrate this season with your family!  Many blessings to you as you enjoy your traditions and celebrate your culture!

(An aside: Mom, if you're reading... I'll be home just after Christmas; you can count on me.  Please have snow... you can skip the mistletoe, but perhaps have braised beef waiting for me!)

The Crash of the Christmas Tree: Lessons Learned

How many hump days can you have in one week?  The afternoon before last week’s hump day, this happened. I hadn’t put any hand-painted glass balls on yet. I only lost two ornaments. One was a 3D glass lace heart. 25 years old. The anger over the flipping tree going over overshadowed any soppy nostalgia over the broken glass scattered in the carpet and across the hardwood floor.

To answer a couple questions… We have no pets. No one was near the tree. Will and Liam were upstairs in their bedrooms. I was in the kitchen when I heard it go. We bought a crooked tree. The trunk was straight as an arrow in the tree stand. Last Sunday when we put it up, I did notice the top leaning a bit forward but didn’t think it was a big deal. Not big enough to send the engineer back under there. Should have sent the engineer in for a design change before it heaved over.

We got it up and after much tweaking decided that it was well and truly crooked and that the best option was to turn it so it leaned into the corner. Yes, the back of the tree become the front. The back which had been facing the window and which no one would see. Where those tacky ornaments rest, the ones I’m not quite sure of their origin, but feel the need to hang on to them. It took a full 24 hours for me to step up to the tree and to re-decorate it. I mulled over the idea of leaving it as it was. But… well, you know what the back of a Christmas tree looks like. Aunt Mable’s crocheted string of beads that had been roped like garland back and forth the true front were just barely showing on one side of the tree. Sheer evidence of an “oops.”

I threw a picture of the fallen tree onto Facebook. That post became a support group for those of us who’ve had this most unfortunate experience. Two people lost one the weekend before ours went over. One mom’s went over three times in one day – once landing on her littlest boy! She has four boys; he wasn’t injured, probably pretty used to being on the bottom of a pile.

The Christmas tree. What a lovely tradition in my Normal Rockwell frame of mind. (That slip must stay! A typo is worth a thousand truths.) And to me, the decorating is as big a part of tradition as gazing googly-eyed at the completed twinkly tree. Despite my want for “a Christmas tree tradition,” this year’s putting-up-the-tree has pushed me to re-think what should be involved in this tradition. What particularly should this tradition look like for my family? For a multitude of reasons, I realized I have been defining this tradition step-by-step, beginning to end, in my mind and hoping the implementation will follow smoothly when adding a man, a young boy, and a male teenager to the mix. Seriously, what the hell am I thinking?

I’ll tell you what I’m thinking.

When my sons have families of their own, I want them to be involved in the making of traditions and to know that there is value in it – for themselves and for their loved ones. Traditions take more than one person implementing a plan; it starts there but depends on buy-in, albeit I now realize various degrees of buy-in.

Bill is allergic to the poke of the pine needles and the sap and the bark. So to put the tree up the first time – and the second time, he hauled out his leather gloves to wrestle with the heavy end. To place ornaments on what must be to him a giant, poisonous pin cushion, he would be wearing leather gloves for ages.

When the thing went over, only the boys were home with me. I called Will down to help me pull it upright. He didn’t want to touch it; he’s not keen on the prickly needles. Will gingerly picked up the top while I reached in bare-handed and hugged the tree to my chest to get it to stand to attention. He balanced it while I examined the tree stand. At that point we had not yet determined it was a crooked tree. All we could do was lean it into a corner and shove a large, hardback cover book of “Curious George” under one side of the tree stand so it wouldn’t topple again and wait for Bill to get home. My thoughts were dark as I struggled unsuccessfully to fix it: I wouldn’t be able to do this on my own. If Bill kicks off before me, so goes my tree stabilizer.

With the repair round of decorating looming, I considered for a moment the first round. I had removed special ornaments from their boxes, so when the boys helped decorate they didn’t need to mess with unpacking ornaments, which is my least favorite part of decorating. Bill and Will stayed within sight of the tree in the kitchen, eyes on projects on the kitchen counter, avoiding eye contact. Avoiding decorating the tree. Liam sat on a chair three feet from me and perhaps put two or three ornaments on; then chatted away as I decorated. I invited him to join in again, and his reply was an eye opener. Looking out of the corner of his eye with a devilish self-protecting smile, he said, “I’m providing charisma to the tree decorating!” Liam also hates anything poky, let alone sappy and sticky.

I’ll be damned. I’m the only one that loves muscling the tree without gloves, poking lights into the interior branches so the whole thing glows. I’m the only one who goes skipping down memory lane with each ornament hung. I’m the only one that enjoys the push back of the tree as I lean into it standing on a step stool to put the star on top.

I’m not saying the three wise men in my house don’t enjoy the memories, but perhaps not all in one sitting. Maybe occasionally walking by the tree they see an ornament that reminds them of the drive to South Dakota with their aunt, two cousins, Grandpa and Grandma, and no electronics. They are happy with one memory at a time. I need full memory-immersion for my putting-up-the-tree experience to be complete.

Perhaps after its set up, some other traditions will take hold. It must be told that string of beads represents more than Aunt Mable, but also Will and Liam’s Great-Grandma Frances and her spunky sisters: Aunt Mina, the eldest and calmest. Aunt Lucie, the baby and full of laughs. Aunt Margaret, the snoopy one who opened closed doors when visiting her sisters – and their families. Aunt Mable, the round one and the ally to Great-Grandma Frances. Those two would share an eyeball roll as Aunt Mable would say, “Lock the doors, Margaret is on her way over.” That’s what happens to me when I string those beads across the tree.

Ye gads. I certainly cannot convey the meaning behind all ornaments in one putting-up-the-tree sitting.

So, down to its skinniest form, what is my expectation of setting up this dead tree in my house? It must be real – dead but real. It must have ornaments that bring back memories. It must have a star. It must have at least 600 white lights. It must have candy canes. It must be lit from sun up to sun down. Ideally, it will be lit when the kids come down in the morning and still lit as they go off to bed.

And what are my basic needs during the setting up of the tree? Help lodging it into the tree base and spinning it until I detect the front the front of the tree. Help picking it up if it falls over. And, a little bit of charisma would be mighty helpful.

The First Sparkle of the Season

This might look like china or crystal to you.  To me, this is my crown jewel of Monday: It all started with a big Boy Scout project I needed to start: end of year re-chartering and catching up on tracking advancements and reports for our scouts and implementing a new system to track advancement. I’ve worked on the foothills of this project a few times already, but now I need to commit to it like a cost accountant working an 8-hour day tracking costs on the refurbishment of Endeavor’s boosters. As I think about that blip in my life at Sundstrand, I see a desk and a table with me swiveling around on my chair between the two of them. The space was committed to the project. At the end of the day, I left a pile in the middle of the desk and that was where I started the next day. This scene is what I need to replicate to get my mind around this scout project.

The job requires setting up two computers side by side. The advancement tracking system is on one computer, but that computer refuses to talk to my printer. My personal computer sits next door and accepts emails with attachments that need to be printed. The printer is in our living room next to the table that occasionally hosts sit-down meals. I need a chair on my right to hold a file drawer full of folders. I need flat work space to shuffle paper in the folders. In the past, I have set up this project on the table in our living room, but the complexity of the job ahead means we would be looking at this set-up for a couple of weeks.

Perhaps no one dreads this as much as Bill – although it’s also a thorn in my side to walk by it when I’m off-duty. Last year when this table was enveloped in mounds during this season, Liam asked, “Mom, do you get paid for this?” which lead to a much needed conversation about volunteerism.

As I write this, I know where I need to set up: the dining room. I can move the printer and the table it’s on to the dining room, which will make more room for the Christmas tree in the living room. Plus, as I write this Wednesday morning, I know the best part of this set up is the newly shined crown jewel. On my Monday calendar, there was a two-hour block marked as “Boy Scouts” that I lived out as “putz.”

Over time, my china hutch has become crammed with stuff I didn’t want to get broken. Monday, on an unplanned trip to the Container Store to find shelves to hang on my pantry door for all of my spices, I found small stand-alone shelves that would work as risers in the china hutch. I could double-deck each shelf. I came home without spice racks (they were too wide for the pantry door) but rather armed with shelves.

My thought was to just scooch stuff around and work the shelves in, but once inside the china closet, I saw how dirty every glass was. So I washed all of the glasses by hand, then installed the shelves, then wound battery-operated twinkle lights through the shiny glasses. Now, it sparkles like the holidays!

Note: In 1999 when I was working on the 25-page paper to finish off my Master’s degree, I painted the entire kitchen two days before the paper was due. I’m an excellent procrastinator, and what I accomplish under pressure is some of my best work. …. So now it’s Thursday. I missed writing the Hump Day Short on Tuesday as I had to slide the scout project to Tuesday. It was a successful day with all equipment set up as planned. I faced the china closet with twinkle lights a-glow and had my Christmas music playing as I finished the reports that were needed for the scout meeting Tuesday night. Then, on Wednesday I got a call that a repairman was on his way to replace the light switch above the stove. And Wednesday got putzed away waiting for him. (Coincidentally, this was a new guy that came out to take care of this simple replacement. He blew the new switch trying to push it back into place with the power running live. He’ll need to come back in a few days and try again.)

Today, Thursday, the Boy Scout project is on the back burner. The special-order replacement windows for the dining room came in and installers will be there today. I broke down the Boy Scout work station and threw a table cloth over the printer so it won’t get dusty. I’ve retreated to my favorite place in town: the quiet room in the library. And I’m ready to write yesterday’s Hump Day Short.

Now… where to begin... Did I mention I spruced up my china hutch?

Here's the matching dining room table -- A 25-year-old Piece of Oak decked out for Christmas!

A Thanksgiving Throw Back

Our path to Thanksgiving is unusual this year. No Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Probably no turkey. Unlikely there will be football in the afternoon. We are going to Florida for a few days, and as the plan stands now, we will be celebrating the day with Harry Potter in Hogsmeade. So my Thanksgiving fix will come from Thanksgivings past. This one is from Thanksgiving morning, November 2012... Ahhhh. Thanksgiving morn. I felt a telepathic scuttle when my alarm went off this morning. That turkey energy running through kitchens all through the country. Houses quiet but for the one person carrying the load of the day: preparing the turkey.

In our house, it’s double duty. I’m kind of the director and Bill does the hands-on lifting, cleaning, rubbing, and carving. We have a special guest of honor this year: we know our turkey lived a charmed life roaming on Chestnut Farms. On Sunday, Bill went to the distribution point to collect our gobbler. My name wasn’t on the list, but the farmer remembered my name. She asked, “What size did Linda order?” Bill hadn’t an idea of available sizes. “Probably a medium.”

And on that day our turkey grew from 14-16 pounds to 17-20 pounds for four people. There will actually be six of us, but I’m pretty sure Will & Liam won’t be trying the turkey. “Point of View” by Shel Silverstein was read by one of the students at the all-school Thanksgiving meeting Monday. Many of us chuckled at it. Others of us used it to sum up exactly why mac’n’cheese is a perfectly good Thanksgiving entrée.

All week I’ve been visualizing that beautifully roasted, domed bird. Daily Bill has been given it cold baths, per farmer’s direction, then covering it with a wet towel, foil and returning it to the fridge. I’ve been studying the many options of preparation: brining, buttering, herbing, or simply shoving it in a 350-degree oven. Since we are having an evening feast, I’ve decided to go with brining it for the day in kosher salt in a sinkful of ice water.

At 6:30 a.m., Bill brought the turkey up from the basement fridge and uncovered it as I gave directions. “I think it should go breast down so that meat is fully submerged in the brine.” We started filling the sink with water and ice; Bill placed the turkey into its prep sink. I restated, “No, it needs to go breast-down.” Bill, looking at me as if I had two heads, “It is breast down. It’s been this way all week.”

Thus we enter a very peculiar state of “I’m right… No, I’m right.” But I AM right, as sure as I can tell the pungent difference between cow manure and pig shit, I AM right. At this intersection, I can’t speak. After a few seconds staring at the tail, the elbow of the wing – and yes, the backbone – I say, “Bill, do you really think this is the breast?” Pause. Sigh. “No, now I don’t.”

Our DD breasted turkey was now a BB. Flat chested. Condensed. Flat as a pancake. She had been lying comatose on her breasts for four days.

Today, I’m thankful for a slower pace so we can gather as a family, turning off the responsibilities and the roles outside our four walls. After all, it’s the human side of Bill that I just adore. At moments like this, he makes me smile deliriously.

Next weekend, I think we will roast a chicken together. I will make a farmer out of him yet.

The Quilt Cocoon

Monday morning I walked into the kitchen and saw a giant cocoon leaning upright against the counter in the corner. After a short shock that ended with a blink, I see that the cocoon’s shell was of Grandma Mills’ quilt, the one she gave us when Will was a baby. And the tuft of black hair shooting out the top of the cocoon confirmed that it was in fact a boy wrapped in a quilt.

I remember this is Will’s quilt because I got to pick out his quilt from the three or four that Grandma had pre-made for great-grandchildren, plus it’s a fall quilt and Will was born in October. This fall, I had brought it out of the closet when I put up the fall decorations.

Of course, I also remember the quilt Liam was given by Grandma two years later. I didn’t get a choice for his, and I think by the time he came along, Grandma’s quilting had slowed a bit as it seems her inventory was short on boy-themed quilts. She gave us a quilt in lilac colors for Liam. I was slightly puzzled by the choice – and I still am today when I see it in the linen chest.

Inside the cocoon was Liam. Not yet dressed, he was managing to unwrap cinnamon rolls and put one on a plate to microwave, all while keeping this quilt tightly wrapped around him. I was in awe of his ability to hold it all together – and that he was getting his own breakfast.

I have no problem with Liam eating sticky cinnamon rolls while rolled in the quilt. We can wash it. The quilters I’ve known over the years would prefer this frequent usage of a handmade quilt rather having it gather dust and permanent wrinkles while tucked away on a high shelf or in a tub in the loft.

I want these handmade gifts out where they can be seen in our house; the quilts remind me of the person who made the quilt. And, in the case of my “heritage quilts,” they remind me of the person who used to wear the clothes that make up the patches and the pieces.

However, all of our quilts can’t be out or displayed. Our house is undergoing a restructuring. With 10- and 13-year-olds, many things from that first decade of their lives need to find another home. Things out of the closets. Out of the bookcases. Out of the drawers. Out of the toy boxes. Out of the storage room. As Will and Liam grow bigger, so many of the toys, books, and quilts look out of place. In their rooms. In our living areas. In our basement storage space.

The want for things to go to a good home hovers over me, as well as many of my friends. We want to make sure the thing is used, not destroyed. If there is life left in it, don’t throw it away. Work to get it up-cycled to a good home. And the same friends can attest to how full our houses are because of this notion.

I’ve worked this fall to solidly identify those things we have outgrown. Will agreed that the 10 tubs of LEGOS that were in the basement last spring and that we hauled to his closet in July could finally go to the loft. But we could NOT get rid of them! I agree. And I’m sad to hear him make this decision.

Also in the summer, we cleared all the toys from the basement living area and stashed them in the basement storage room. In front of the shelves where all the Christmas decorations are. I did it on purpose: I will need to get to those shelves. The toys will need to be dealt with. To a good home, of course. Hopefully, they are on their way to the local thrift shop where the proceeds will benefit adults in town who have special needs.

Will and Liam agreed that the children’s books should go into the Little Free Library on our front lawn. My boys are so brave in this growing-up business. I’m the one attached to “Sheep in a Jeep” and “Kipper.” I can see the sorting of books already: one for the library, one for the loft, one for the library, two for the loft. For the grandkids. I’m that age?!?! I’m putting things in storage for grandkids?!?!

I’ve found tubs with rubber seals around the lids. They seal tightly, safe-keeping the contents inside from the stale loft air, unplanned moisture, and nasty rodents. The tubs are clear so a visit to the loft will mean a poke to the old memory for me. I have one packed already with the oldest of Will and Liam’s baby blankets and small Thomas quilts. I kept three baby quilts out, determined to add sleeves to the backs of them and hang them as artwork somewhere in the house. Or, next summer, to put them in the trunk of the van to use as beach blankets. They are too small for cocoons… and not yet ready for the loft.

Thankful

Do you know I think of you nearly every day? When I throw chopped garlic and onions into a sizzling pan, that glorious sound and smell makes me think of meals we have made and shared together.

Every morning when I curl my eyelashes, do you know that I remember the day you appeared at my door with an eyelash curler after reading about my eyelashes that were growing in straight as an arrow after chemo?

When I open the boys’ closet doors and I see on the top shelf the blanket and sweater you knitted, the multi-color baby quilt you sewed, the blanket you hand-tied… I remember the sweetness of your gift and of bringing our babies home from South Korea.

When I drive by the lake in town, I think of you telling the story about skating across it as a child. And I remember all those days as preschool moms bringing one another support through short or long conversations standing outside the school.

When I see the Cubbies celebrating their World Series win, I remember meeting you at Wrigley and taking a seat among your 40 gray-haired friends that day when one of them couldn’t make the five-hour drive from Iowa to the ballpark.  Surely, you saw the last game of this season from your seat in heaven.

When I see the little sailboats on our little lake, I feel the breeze and hear the laughter from our sailing trips on lakes and oceans.

When it happens that we are together for an hour, a day, or a week… later – for hours, days, and weeks – I’m homesick for those times of unbroken comradery and conversation and just being together.

When I remember eating your chicken noodle soup, tuna and noodles with big thick egg noodles, freshly homemade rolls and kolaches, Christmas cookies, apple crisp from your 7th grade home-ec class, coffee cake with vegetable oil topping, I smile. Those memories are sparked when I see the recipe card in your hand-writing or make your recipe in my kitchen.

When I hear what is happening in your life and realize that the same is happening in mine, I’m more confident. My sanity is re-invigorated. My outlook more chipper. None of us are in this gig alone, and there is power and strength in knowing that.

When I have a PJ morning with no make-up and crazy hair, I think about the trips taken with you and your family and remember that we all woke up and stuck with “that look” for a couple hours – and we were all OK with it.

When we get to go for long walks and have long talks or just run into each other for short chats between appointments, I look forward to hearing your voice and knowing what’s happening in your life.

When I have a quiet cup of coffee alone in the morning, I wish you and I lived on the same cul-de-sac and could have coffee and conversation together more often.

…This week, I watched a video of Maya Angelou talking about “Being a rainbow in somebody’s cloud,” and how she had so many rainbows in her own life. Whenever she was nervous about appearing in front of a crowd or embarking on a new adventure, she called all her rainbows to her side with words to the effect of: “Come on, let’s go. We’re doing this together!” Whether the rainbows were from people who were dead or alive, she bolstered her own self-confidence with them.

Draw those rainbows into your circle and toss out the dark clouds. Collect rainbows. Give rainbows. Be with rainbow people. You’re in my rainbow tribe, and I’m thankful for you every day.

Happy hump day.

The Annual Autumn Dance

Head-banging November 1st, started with my hair dryer shorting out. There was a back-up dryer in the basement that our guests from England and Paris had used in October. With me, there is no direct route from A to B in my house. I stopped to wash dishes in the kitchen on my way to the basement when it happened: a long curl fell over my left eye. I gave my head a bounce and more followed. Earlier, while getting Liam ready for school, it was only 32 degrees. I knew we had a freeze the night before because Bill fell down our deck stairs on the way out the door at 6:30 a.m. I heard a rumbling and crashing noises then silence. I flew outside bare-footed and pranced as the bottoms of my feet hit a thin, cold layer of ice. Bill was standing, stretching his back, and wiggling his wrists. A taxi was in our drive waiting for him to start his bag drag to China. “I’m fine… really, I’m fine.” Afraid of missing his plane, he walked away with a cup of hot coffee all over his shirt and suit coat. Silly string from Halloween antics stuck to his butt and his bag. Yes, it had dipped to 32.

“Why do I have to wear this creepy equipment?” Liam complained as I re-introduced him to said equipment. Winter gloves. With one step outside, he knew. “Whoa! It is cold!” and he snuggled the hood of his winter coat around his ears. The rainbow of silly string all over the drive reminded him of Halloween night. “Last night was so much fun, but I hardly remember any of it!” Often, I take this boy’s statements and superimpose them upon a 17-year-old. And my eyes grow wide at that thought. Liam’s preschool teacher six years ago called him “spicy.” That still applies, plus he has a very funny, twisted command of his vocabulary. In particular, I love his “rainbow auras.” Translation: sunsets.

Back to my hair. It’s about the length of Steven Tyler’s from Aerosmith. And with it bouncing around, I start singing the chorus from “Sweet Child of Mine.” I fall into that lyric after a dose of the spice. I screech it like Tyler but discover that morning that it’s actually a Guns’n’Roses song. This kid has no ballad associated with him. It’s all “Oh, oh, oh, oh sweet child of mine…” screaming and racing up the staff then losing intensity and dropping back down with another “Oh, oh, oh, oh sweet child of mine…” And in my rendition, “nah-nah-nah” makes up all other words in the song.

That morning, I stepped away from my standards – away from country, away from Sinatra – one of Will’s favorite artists, away from the female swooner Adele. I fill up the feed with hard rock. The dishes get done to screeches, confident guitar licks, and songs for which I only know the choruses. I could be singing lyrics about any number of socially unacceptable events, but they are turned innocent with my “nah-nah-nahs.”

I’m letting it all loose dancing around my kitchen when I realize where I am in the year. November 1st. Life in October held an incredible, bursting intensity with good friends visiting from Paris and England, Will’s 13th birthday, our 24th wedding anniversary, a big kick-off event for scouts, yet another 50th birthday celebration for me with gymnastics moms, a weekend away with my quilting friend, and a decked out Halloween. October. I rode it like a roller-coaster, knowing it had a wild start and would come to a calm end. And although I’m a day late, I realize this is a very personal annual celebration for me.

In the shower seven years ago, I washed away stubs of hair from my buzz-cut head. And the intensity of life every October since then reminds me how lucky I am. And every year, I dance… with wildly happy hair.

P.S. Some days, like today, a beautiful liquid muse is most effective.

Do you remember "Dancing on Halloween Morn?"

Mayan Ruins

I’ve read two books in the last month, and in both of them, characters time travelled. Right up there with how an enormous, people-filled steel bullet can fly 35,000 feet above the earth at 500 miles an hour, the twists created in a story line involving time travel gets my mind in an uncomfortable kink. _Life after Life_, a big 400+ book by Kate Atkinson, I gave up on. Read the last page and had no idea how that wrapped up the life of a woman who died time after time, tweaking history a bit each time she returned. _The Eyre Affair_ by Jasper Fforde was easier to follow and conversation with others afterwards helped me knit the bits together. With my gizzard full of time travel, I felt a twinge last Tuesday. Liam is studying the Mayan culture and has been assigned a team project: to build a Mayan Stelae – a carved pillar. On the front of these structures is a person and on the other sides are hieroglyphics describing the person. I provided the clay, the marble rolling pin, the carving tools, and ultimately, the Styrofoam center on which the carved slabs of clay would be anchored. And the authoritarian voice that kept two 10-year-old boys on task.

Somewhere around 1990, Bill and I, together with a few other friends, stayed on a live-a-board dive boat off the coast of Belize. After a week of three dives a day, we dried our gills and rented a large white people-mover van, and we struck out from Belize City and crossed the narrow country to the Guatemalan border in search of a Mayan ruin. I was a sheep in the flock, the last goose in the V… no idea where I was going, just going with the group. Often I think if my 5th grade social studies teacher had told me that I might actually go to some of the places I studied, I might have done more than memorize dates and places to pass the test.

The structure was clinging to a hillside with a ton of steps from top to bottom. I only remember the ruin as a backdrop to the grassy area in front of it where a guide prodded a spider out of its in-ground home. Right in front of me, a tarantula as big as my hand emerged from the blades of grass then seconds later, he grumpily returned to his hole.

The sight that is etched on my brain was from walking away from the ruin toward a shallow river. I saw women and children on the opposite shore and ankle deep in the water. It was a rather serious scene, not one of people enjoying the water in an American beach-sense. They looked busy. From the water’s edge on my side of the river, I could clearly see what they were doing. Laundry. I had stumbled upon Belizean Laundry Mavens, rubbing clothes on rocks to scrub them and then rinsing them in the river water. I hadn’t thought about this scene for years, until I became the adult responsible for overseeing the building of a Mayan Stelae. Today, this Laundry Maven will be more grateful than cheeky about the loads of clothes processed in the laundry room.

Last week, with this scene replaying from the depth of my memory banks, I was sure my over-seeing this project was serendipity. An opportunity to walk down memory lane to one of the coolest trips ever. From the Mayan book I checked out from the library, I see that we probably visited either Caracol. Or perhaps Xunantunich. And according to the book, there were probably walls in the area like the ones these two 10-year-olds were constructing. I wanted to tell them more about that trip, but I had collected no memories to impart. For I had only been one dazed sheep traveling in the herd.

With this theory of Mayan serendipity busted, another one struck me.

I’m the mom who owns and knows how to operate a hack saw! To pre-cut a big block of Styrofoam down to a workable size for the after school project.  It was all part of a divine plan that I take the lead on this one.  Not for my Mayan experience but for my experience trimming trees with a hack saw.

The Sewing Machine

Last Friday, I made a tight circle in the parking lots around the quilt shop. We are lucky to have a bustling little downtown area, but that sometimes means parking a block or two away from where you are headed. Usually, I don’t mind the walk, but on Friday I was taking my sewing machine in to have it fixed. It’s a portable sewing machine with a handle on the top. I had been meaning to take it in for months because in a couple weeks I’m going to Cape Cod for a quilting weekend with a friend. I don’t quilt, but it's a chance for my quilting friend Deb and I get to spend a weekend together catching up. Deb and her family were our neighbors when we first moved to Boston. She welcomed us the first day in our house with food and a list of nearby shops. We became immediate, close friends. After she moved to the south shore, we had frequent virtual coffees, but as our real life with kids became busier and busier, our virtual phone-coffees became fewer and fewer.

So, if I’m going to bluff my way into the weekend as a quilter, I need a sewing machine that works. I think the last time I used it was on Liam’s Halloween costume a few years ago; however, now I can’t get the bobbin threaded and the needle bends whenever I try to use the machine.

After circling for a few minutes with no luck, I pulled into a 30-minute parking spot that was reserved for another downtown business. I knew this would be a quick drop-off. It was still a 50-yard walk toting the sewing machine, but given I work out with a Marine twice a week, I figured I could do it.

I hauled the machine through the parking lot, across the street, through another parking lot and down the stairs to the basement quilt shop. I heaved the machine onto a counter in the center of the store and waited for help.

Another customer came in a few minutes after me. To no one in particular, she asked, “What is going on in here? There’s a thread winding through the store and out the door!” Lo and behold, that thread led to the bent needle in my sewing machine. The sight gave everyone a good laugh. Perplexed with pink cheeks, I pulled the thread from my machine and followed it back through the store to the entrance. The fine white fiber seemed to be illuminated against the black steps up to the parking lot. I got to the top of the stairs and saw it continuing across the parking lot toward the sidewalk. I left the wadded thread on a curb in the parking lot next to the quilt shop. I didn’t want to lose my place in line; I would pick up the rest of it when I left.

Back in the shop, I learned that if my sewing machine went to the repair man – although he’s very good at what he does, I wouldn’t get it back for six to eight weeks. I had two weeks. “Well, a few months ago, the owner of the store said she would take a look at it to see if it might be something simple to fix.”

The lady at the counter checked with the owner who was in a meeting, and she remembered me. She was in a meeting but would be free in about 20 minutes. Despite not being a quilter, there is nothing so enticing as the fabrics and creative possibilities lying in-wait within a quilt shop. I know this sport would be dangerous for me. If I gave in to the pull, I wouldn’t be a quilter. I would be a fabric buyer. Still I have a few embroidered pieces that needed to be framed, so I had a look around and managed to come up with a few small pieces of Halloween fabric to frame my needlework; I would spend the weekend sewing simple straight lines.

As promised, 20 minutes the owner came over and had a look at my machine. “Well, first I see that the foot you have in is not an all-purpose foot. See this narrow opening in the foot? It’s not meant for zig-zag stitching and that’s what your machine is set on, so that’s why your needle bent.” It was so obvious. And her voice was so patient. And so loud. I could almost hear the older ladies gray-haired heads shaking back and forth with a "tsk-tsk" sound. She gave the machine a once over and tweaked dials and buttons as she went, explaining what each did. She was so kind, my eyes started tearing up. My grandma had quilted. Had I lived closer to her as an adult, I might have had this lesson from her years ago. With the same level of patience in her voice.

“Let’s see if it works,” she suggested. “Do you have a spool of thread?”

“Well, I did, but I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere over by the Public Safety Building.” Fifty yards away. Where I parked the van. Where the spool must have fallen off. Where the thread marks my guilty trail. With every footstep on the stairs, I looked up to see if it was a police officer that had followed the Gretel-trail to hand me an in-person ticket.

She found a spool and tested the machine. “I think it will work for you. The tension may be a little off, but you can play with that.”

I wanted to give her a hug but instead made-do with a "thank-you"; then I lugged the machine to the van, dragging the string of thread back with me across the street.

Happy Hump Day.