All Saints Day

These are some shots from a walk through Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, resting place of several famous people, including Gertrude Stein and the composer, Frederic Chopin. 

The oldest people buried here are a husband and wife, Abelard (1079-1142) and Heloise (1101-1164).  Many graves have been added since that time.  The most recent I saw was in 2011, but most are very old.  Many are moss covered or strewn with cobwebs; some have sunken over time.

Lots of the family plots are marked by crypts where the bereaved can come to pray.  The smell of incense and flickering of candles can be found at several graves.  As sunlight shines through the stained glass that appears in the back and sides of many of the crypts, color can be seen through designs cut into the doors in their fronts.

After all these years, I still felt as though I was witnessing the grief of the bereaved looking at these graves.  Seeing how they attempted to preserve the likeness of a loved one, or tell something about their lifestyle in the memorial they chose, I understood the desire to make sure the one they lost was not forgotten having experienced that same feeling.

Grief is such a painful process; it overwhelms us leaving both body and soul spent.  Once you have lost someone, I don’t believe you ever really stop grieving.  I think the best you can hope for is to find peace.

Peace to all who are mourning.

https://www.mamakatslosinit.com

Never have I seen a ghost; but if I did, I am pretty sure it would be here.

Making Do

 Barbara Brackman's Material Culture

My Happy Sewing Place

Several years ago I came across these vintage promotional items on the internet.  The button is from WWI, and the booklet came out during the Second World War.  Materials and goods were scarce during wartime, and people drastically altered their lifestyles as a matter of patriotism.  It is easy to romanticize those days, but the sacrifices people made were real.

Times aren’t nearly so bad for me in present day Topeka, KS; still, these images speak to me.  Around the time I stumbled across the images above, we started to go through old photographs to cull pictures for the many “memory board” activities that preceded my son’s high school graduation.  My kids began to point out how many of their childhood photos showed me in clothing I still wear today.  They give me a hard time about the twenty-year-old items in my wardrobe, but it doesn’t bother me.  I don’t care much about fashion as long as I look presentable; and if I am home painting or gardening even presentable becomes negotiable.  Thumbing through those photos, an idea for belt tightening hit me.  While the kids were all three in college or dental school,  I followed the philosophy behind the WWI button:  I am making my old clothes do.

I was able to do this because:

I have always believed in buying quality.  So, what is in my closet is well constructed from reliable, natural fabrics.

I do not follow trends.  I choose things that have simple lines and classic design which keeps them from becoming dated too easily.

I personally don’t place a high value on fashion.  Some people express themselves in what they wear which would make this choice harder.  I express myself in art, writing and decorating my home.  For me clothes are pretty much just functional.

I hate to shop.

For the past five years I have been embracing this lifestyle.  It fits well in my overall life-simplifying plan. I play little games with myself to keep it light-hearted, choosing one garment at a time to wear to death.  As I write this I am wearing the current target, a blue striped Ralph Lauren shirt circa 1991.  The cotton is worn, soft and comfortable, the collar and cuffs gently frayed at their edges.  Its like an old friend I will miss when it is gone…   just as I will eventually miss the peach shirt that steps into replace it or the lavender that will replace the peach.

I wonder about the sense of gratitude I now feel for the literal shirt on my back. With each garment that passes to the rag bag, I feel a sense of satisfaction that it has served its purpose well. Would I even notice my old favorites slipping away, if I had not made the commitment to be conscious about fully using what I have before buying more?  I suspect not.  Five years ago I thought I was making a sacrifice, but instead I find myself content and more aware of simple everyday blessings.  In the end, making do has been no sacrifice at all.

OK, Oklahoma

OK, Oklahoma,

I am sending you my first born.

She has been dreaming of this moment since she was four.  Then together we have dreamed this moment would take place right there in the heart of Oklahoma City ever since laying eyes on OU’s dental school campus with its green spaces and down-home-friendly folks.

Being a Prairie Girl myself, I know there is more than dentistry she can learn there.  When the wind comes sweeping down the plain as it seems to with far too much frequency and voracity, she will learn resiliency.  When knocked down, she will learn to rise back up.

She will learn to find beauty in the spare.  Looking at the vast horizon she will see past herself and gain perspective of her place in the world.  Looking into the star filled night sky she will make her wishes, and dealing with a land that can be harsh she will gain the strength and wisdom to make those wishes come true.

I am sending her with confidence knowing you will be good for her and to her.  Knowing there is space enough on your plains for her to grow into the woman she is meant to be.  Knowing in Oklahoma she will be OK.

More of my look back to the back to school season five years ago.

Oklahoma, Here She Comes

Another look back to that back to school season that took the Dentist to her training in OKC.

A few days ago we loaded a mix of things passed down from family, found along the curb, or purchased for just this day into a moving van and headed into the new adventure that awaits our daughter as she begins dental school in Oklahoma.

The excitement was palpable.  Everything she has worked for has been leading up to this day.  What a joy that we were all able to help her out and be here to share it with her.  And yet that darned van full of her stuff lurking out front did seem to mock me just a little bit.

To me the hardest part of a move is always when you are looking at what you are leaving behind.  Once we got there and started pulling the place together it was good times!

We arranged an explosion of mirror bubbles over her bed.

And discovered much subliminal messaging in her art…a glittery golden Kansas outline, a reproduction of an architectural drawing of her high school signed by friends and teachers at her graduation, and a series of prints her father did in studio his freshman year of college documenting his own letters home.

There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

We found the perfect spot for this La Femme à la fête, a souvenir  from her visit to a winery in France, to send her off each morning with a toast.

Most of our time was spent hefting furniture and unpacking boxes.  I will include more shots of the assembled apartment next time I get to visit.  The place is tiny, but really wonderful.  And adventure waits right outside her door.

The Spice of Life

Back to school can be a very nostolgic time for mom's of adult children.  I find myself reading posts written as my kids were heading off on fall adventures all over again.  This one conveys the nervous excitement of sending my eldest off to dental school, and the desire to do what I could to be of some use.

Over the course of the next several weeks we will be helping our first born set up her first apartment.  The dental school has made it abundantly clear that their program is meant to be a full-time pursuit, and they don’t anticipate the students will be working jobs concurrently with their studies.  This means her living expenses will be covered by student loans for the next four years.

I hate debt, so the thought of borrowing just to live makes me shudder.  I have been looking for all the ways we can help her limit spending as she establishes her own little home.  After all, we really have more than enough.  So, we have been shuffling furniture, kitchen supplies, sheets and other sundry items her way.

This week I hit the pantry and the spice cabinet to stock her non-perishable items and staples.  As I packed item after item into bags I had to smile at the thought of her using the things.  I mixed spices into old shakers to give her the blends she likes when her dad grills burgers or I make Grandma Susie’s spaghetti sauce.

 I sighed as I filled Boy Scout and Girl Scout tins with flour and sugar, and wondered how those Scouts could be heading out into the world so soon.  Has it been so long since they sold me these tins of popcorn and mints?

The spice cabinet was filled with several sugar sprinkle containers half to a quarter full of the same kinds of sprinkles.  When I worked at the church I had the children decorate holiday cookies for Ronald Mc Donald House, and the project called for many shakers  for all the helping hands.  I suppose last Christmas is the last Christmas for that tradition as well.  So, I combined like sprinkles into single containers, then washed and filled the empties with spices for the new apartment.

So many times in life the new brings with it an ending to the old.  In the pouring and filling of containers, I fought periodic waves of sadness at the passing of what had been.  For the most part, I felt the anticipation and expectation for what was about to come.  After all, I told myself as I measured the oregano and black pepper, change is the spice of life.

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Mother's Dreams

When this photo was taken my mother was young and single.   She had no way to predict that she would be granted ninety-three years of life on this planet or be partner in a marriage that lasted over fifty years, ending only with the death of my father.  She could have had no idea she would carry ten babies under her heart, but see only eight of them survive her.

She is so young in this photograph.  The slight smile on her face and the gleam in her eyes hint at a heart filled with dreams.  I will never know what those dreams were.  Never know how many of them came true.  I can guess that having grown up an orphan she was anxious to get out into the world to make a life of her own, but she never told me that.  She offered very few glimpses into the life she had led before this photo was taken.

On summer nights we used to sit on the front stoop and look at the stars.  She often talked about the dreams she had for my future.  The world was moving fast then, and she saw fantastic changes in technology coloring the world I would know.  She would make outrageous predictions, and we would laugh.  As the laughter faded and she grew quiet, her gaze would return to the stars.  We would sit quietly each lost in our thoughts.  How many of her thoughts were of the young girl in this photograph and the dreams in her heart?  She would not say, and I would never know.

What I Miss Most

(This is the home of my husband’s grandparents.  The photo rests on a quilt made my Grandma Olivia the lady of the house. )

I don’t have many photos of my childhood home or the people and rambunctious activity that filled it.  Still, I can picture that place as if I had been there only yesterday.  It was a two bedroom home–three if you count the unfinished basement occupied by all of the boys.  It was far too small for the hordes of people who lived there.  Under-insulated and heated only by two glorified space heaters, it was a meat locker in the winter.  Without air conditioning, we had ample heat mid-summer though.  On the face of it, my home should have been a miserable place to live.  It was not.

My dad was a short, stocky man of few words with a quick and wicked sense of humor.  His name was Elwyn– Ellie to my mom, but Woody to the rest of the world.  Few people really knew him, introverted as he was.  He loved to read everything from Popular Mechanics to the poetry of such extremes as Ogden Nash and Robert Frost.  He worked twelve hour days.  When his long shift was done, he came straight home to all of us.  I remember him coming through the back door at night. I would run to him and climb up on the steel toes of his size 13 EEE Wolverine work shoes, and tired as he must have been he would dance me around the kitchen.

He called my mother Bunny.  Her real name was Susie, though she was known to our teenaged friends simply as Suz.  My mom was as funny as my dad; I think that is one thing that kept their marriage strong.  She was old school,  waiting on him hand and foot when he was home.  My mom had quirky mannerisms and butchered metaphors mercilessly.  In turn, we teased her without mercy.  She never took herself too seriously to be able to laugh along with us.

The house where I grew up was loud. Stories of outrageous antics pulled by someone who lived there were recounted time and again.  It was filled with laughter, and it was filled to the rafters with love.  There are many things I miss about living in the home of my parents, but none of those things compare with how much I miss dad and mom themselves.

And the Other Is Gold: TToT

My grandma (third from the left) with some of the friends she played softball with back in the day.

I don't know if it is because I have reached a certain age, but recently circumstance has brought old friends back into my life after years of separation.  I didn't part with any of these women on poor terms.  Rather we became busy with the responsibilities of careers and families.  In some cases moves put miles between us.  In each case these were women I love who have enriched my life with laughter, shared tears, and immense wisdom.  

Early this summer a mutual friend told me she had been in touch with our old friend Beth.  Completely in keeping with her fearless nature, Beth had signed on to donate a kidney to a friend.  When it turned out that Beth's kidney also matched a different person awaiting transplant, and another donor matched Beth's friend a whole saga began.  By the time the operations were complete,  the circle had expanded to include ten people giving and receiving kidneys at KU Med Center in Kansas City.  By the point I heard about all this, Beth was recovering nicely and was ready for visitors.  So, we went, our lunch date extending into the night.  Despite not seeing one another for fifteen years,  we picked up the conversation as though it had only paused a minute earlier.

About a week later I ran into another strong woman friend in the grocery store...not my usual grocery, or hers either.  It has been ten years since we have seen one another despite living in the same city.  When we knew each other our daughters danced, and she and I did many volunteer activities together to support the ballet.  Life handed her a series of misfortunes that she certainly didn't deserve, but unsurprisingly she handled them with courage and wisdom.  I am sad that I had no idea she was struggling with these challenges and therefore did nothing to reach out.  I am not surprised, however, to find her on the other side as positive and strong as ever.  Coincidently, she is moving closer to my house now, and we've had the opportunity to enjoy each other's company once again--picking up the thread of our friendship just where we laid it down years ago.

At the beginning of the month I received a letter from a high school friend who I have not seen in over twenty years.  For ages we stayed in touched through long, colorful letters.  Months might go by without hearing from each other when suddenly one of us would find a fat envelope stuffed with page after page of detailed stories of the latest off-the-wall experience one of us had.  The last three or four letters I have sent over the years have missed their intended mark, and I had no idea how to find her.  Out of nowhere a fat envelope stuffed with pages detailing her life fell through the mail slot in my front door one day and my heart soared.

Yesterday, I was at an inservice taking a break from a dry presentation when someone came up behind me and squeezed my shoulder.  I turned around to discover an old friend, the mother of one my daughter's dearest childhood friends.  Again, we hadn't seen each other for a very long time and hadn't gotten to actually visit in even longer.  At the end of the day we got together and talked heart-to-heart for a couple of hours.  What a joy to discover that her little girly-girl has grown up to be a chemical engineer who loves her work.  My heart swelled with pride for her despite having not seen her for many years.

When I was a Brownie (about 1967) we used to sing a song at Scouts that declared Make new friends, but keep the old.  One is silver, but the other is gold.  There is no way that I could fully appreciate the meaning of those words in my Brownie Scout days, but today I know them to be the absolute truth.

My Ten Things of Thankful this week:

Beth (and Gwen for reconnecting us)

Beth's brave contribution to the successful kidney transplants

Charleen

Robin 

Kelly

Old friends

Good memories

Support, love, laughter, tears

That is more than ten, but I am blessed with an abundant life.

In The Fullness of Time

Time has a way of leveling things out.  Issues that once seemed insurmountable look less formidable in the rear view mirror.  My son is currently in the midst of a break between undergraduate and law school. He finally took the gap year we considered back in 2013 as he was leaving high school.

His father and I are far more relaxed than we were when he was choosing what to do following high school graduation.  He seemed ill prepared for college...until he attended, became engaged in his studies for the first time in his life,  and experienced more academic success than it would have been prudent for us to hope for.  It's encouraging to look back upon your troubles once they are resolved.  Things are improved in the fullness of time.  

Here's what we were thinking five years ago...

It is the last semester of my last kid’s last year in high school.  Years ago I thought I would be a weepy mess by this point, but I am not.  He is a great kid with a huge heart and good mind.  He has two older sisters who have gone before him and shown me that a young adult can leave your home, but never leave your heart.  So, much to my surprise (and no doubt his), I am getting anxious to see what comes next.

My son comes from a long line of males on my side of the family who are late bloomers in terms of achievement matching ability.  For several years now I have been promoting the idea of a gap year between high school and college.  Recently, I think my son heard what I have been saying for the first time.  Delayed entry to college makes sense to us all.  So, the search has begun for an appropriate gap year experience.

Travel is educational and encourages maturation, but it comes with a price tag that exceeds what my son has available.  His dad and I are not interested in working here at home to pay for our eighteen-year-old to be a jet-setting tourist.

I have found programs that pair international travel and earning college credits.  If we aren’t going to send him to college in the USA in the fall because we think he could use more time to grow ready for the experience, how could taking classes half a planet away serve him well?

The third option we found online is a combination of international travel and service.  This is the option that has us the most excited.  Serving others is good for your soul.  It makes you appreciate what you have as well as what others do to serve you.  There is nothing like hard work at minimal wages to make you begin to see the value of higher education. Helping to pay your own way builds self-confidence.  It gives you a clearer picture of the worth of a dollar.

I see by the application deadlines that we are arriving late to this party.  So, we will be scrambling over the next several weeks in an attempt to make this happen for him.  I have no idea what our search will unearth, but  I trust that we will forge the best plan for his growth and development.

There is a big world out there, and nearly everything my son has done to this point has signaled his intention to explore it.  His knowledge of geography surpassed mine more than a decade ago.  His favorite classes are the three foreign languages he studies.  His future holds the promise of great things.  As his mother, I will do all in my power to give him the world.

Circling Back

I saw this quote the other day and was struck by its truth…

Life’s journey is circular, it appears.  The years don’t carry us away from our fathers–they return us to them. ~Michel Marriot

Abutting generations.  Their issues, feelings, experiences may be too intense.   People pull away from one another to gain space in which to find their own footing.

They maintain distance.  When grandchildren come, they need their grandparents, and the generations are pulled back together.

Time allows us to see each other in light that falls less harshly on our choices and ways of thinking.

The line that once moved directly away bends and bows and encircles all once more.  Three generations; one family.  Individuals bound to one another through time by love.

Sweet Corn

The father-in-law of one of the secretaries at my school has farmed his whole life.  Though he reached the age when many people retire years ago, there are parts of farming that he can’t let go.  Every year he grows sweet corn on a scale that must be considered more crop than garden.  Everyone at our school benefits from his efforts.

I decided to preserve the corn I received after finding food.com’s instructions for freezing fresh corn.  Step 1:Shucking the Corn is the kind of chore that can be done while your mind is  a million miles away.  My mind was on the back porch on a hot summer day in the early 1970s.  Sitting on the concrete stoop I happily worked through a stack of corn that someone had given to our family helping to stretch the food budget required to fill the bottomless bellies of so many growing children.

Corn on the cob was one of the best things about summer in my mind.  I could make a meal of buttery, sweet corn.  I loved pretending with my brothers that our corn eating was like fingers flying across the keys of a typewriter reaching the end of the page with a ding and returning to the other side for yet another line.

I took pride in my ability to remove more of the corn silks than my older brothers could.  No one would get a silk caught like floss in their teeth as long as I was performing quality control.  I often reworked ears of corn my brothers had deemed ready for the pot of boiling water shaking my head at their feeble attempts.

Step 2:  Cook the ears in boiling, salted water for four minutes.  The steam rising above my huge soup pot as I drop in each ear causes my glasses to fog over.  I think of my mother in her hot kitchen.  Our house was cooled–on those summers that it was cooled at all–by a single window air unit positioned in the living room at the farthest point from the kitchen possible.  Standing near the steaming pot in my own comfortable kitchen I suddenly remember that there was at some point during my childhood a unit in the window by the kitchen pantry.  I don’t recall it ever being there, but a memory of my dad removing it floats through my brain.  I am peeking at him from inside as he works outside the window.  Normally, he would grin at me but in this memory he is discouraged.  Why had I never made the connection between this memory and the many memories of my mother’s flushed face as she stood working at the hot stove?

Step 3:  Lay the ears on a clean dishtowel to drain and cool.
Step 4: Once cooled to the touch, stick the end of an ear into the opening of the center tube of an angel food or bundt cake pan.  Using a paring knife cut the kernels from the cob letting them fall into the cake pan.  Going through the motions I can’t help but notice how much my hands have come to resemble my mother’s. Her hands are the things I remember most vividly about her perhaps because they were always moving, always delving into some project that would directly benefit me.

Step 5: Melt butter (1/3 cup was perfect for a dozen ears) , drizzle over the corn and toss.  Place corn in an airtight container and freeze.

I tasted the corn before slipping it into my freezer and smiled at the same buttery goodness I remember from my childhood.  I started this project with the idea I was preserving corn, but came to understand I was really preserving memories.  Memories of childhood summers with simple pleasures in a family who surrounded me in love.

A Mother's Love

In high school my daughter's friends gravitated to one home more than any other.  Their friend Eric is an only child and his parents graciously opened their basement to Rock Band, pool and all sorts of teen amusements.  Instead of one child, the house was often filled with a dozen or more. Scrumptious home baked treats were served warm from the oven and both parents created a welcoming atmosphere where the kids felt relaxed and at home.

By senior year the kids became aware of changes in Eric's dad, though it wasn't until later that they learned he was suffering from Alzheimer's.  Over time this gracious man retreated from the kids.  When we discovered his illness I felt awful for all the times this rambunctious group of kids descended on the family when they were already dealing with so much.  We could have easily shifted their gatherings to our own basement.  But at no time did Eric's parents close their door to the kids even when it would have been so much easier to do so.

Eric's dad died while the kids were in college. I attended the visitation and delivered a message from my daughter.  Off at school in Memphis she was unable to be at the funeral for this man for whom she felt such affection.  She wanted them to know she would be there if she could.

Eric's mom smiled and commented about what great friends these kids had remained in the years after graduation.  Looking so serene she pointed out that Eric would have a strong support system to help him deal with his loss.  At that moment I understood why she had endured teens screaming along with Rock Band while caring for her ailing husband night after long night, and I was awed by her wisdom.

While her husband's disease caused him to recede into the past, while her teenaged son lived fully in the present, this loving mother was thinking about the future.  In that future she knew her son would experience painful loss and would need strong relationships to help him cope. She determined to provide a place where those friendships could be forged.  As this realization flooded me I was struck with such respect for this woman.  My heart connected to hers mother to mother.  I understood again why this young man has turned out so well.

Corning Ware Hand-me-downs

Anyone who has closed down the household of elderly parents can relate to the walls of boxes that encroach on your own home during the process.  Things that have sentimental value or that could be useful add up until both the experience and amount of stuff become overwhelming.  A few years ago we were closing down the homes of my parents and my in-laws simultaneously.  We were inundated with stuff.  As boxes came into the house they were opened, and each of us chose the things that we wanted to keep. Things were reshuffled into boxes marked for each of the kids.  We repackaged as we went along which didn’t always lead to the most efficient organization of items for storage until the kids were ready for them.  

As things were finally reorganized and distributed I discovered an abundance of Corning Ware containers.  Suddenly, I had a cost-free solution to the large number of our plastic food containers that were wearing out.  I had been following the stories online about the potential hazards of using plastic for food and water storage.  Depending on which article you read plastic is either harmless or lethal.  Either way, it didn’t make sense to purchase new plastic when I already had so many glass containers in an array of sizes.

Corning Ware from three households now in one.

It has been a while now since I cleared the plastic container cupboard to make room to store Corning Ware.  I don't know if my body is any healthier for steering clear of the potential hazards of plastic, but I am sure it does my heart good each time I transfer something nourishing I have prepared for my family into a vintage Corning Ware container that was once used to feed my family or my husband's.

Surely Goodness and Mercy

This was a weekend for reflection.  I came home Friday ready to relax my mind and body.  Instead I was greeted by the news that a neighbor and friend from church had died suddenly this week.  Two doors down and I had no idea.

I didn’t find his death shocking because of his age or general health.  I find it shocking because I hadn’t even considered it happening.  Because it was yet another death in that generation that separates me from death. Because he leaves a wife who loved him and shared his life, and her pain makes me wince.  And so my weekend began with a funeral, a farewell to a wonderful person.

Afterwards, I met with a friend to create a gift for another friend.  I took individual strands of silk and marino wool and through the waft and the warp, through friction and pressure and the saturation of water that reminded me of the tears of a lifetime, I coaxed those fibers into a silky woolen scarf that will warm my friend.

Sunday afternoon I met my sister at an estate auction where a lifetime’s possessions of a man she knew were being sold.  Table after table told the story of a life.  A love of photography. A well traveled, well read man.  A long marriage.  His life had ended and was on display for all to place value on.

On the way home I considered how brief life truly is, and how grateful I am that goodness and mercy really do follow me each day.

The Old Emerson Fan

This ancient Emerson Electric fan was old as dirt when my husband and I bought it for ten dollars at an auction in 1985 the first summer we were married.  He thought he could rewire it and get it working again; I thought it was cute.  When we got it home, we were both surprised to discover that it ran like a top as soon as we plugged it in, and it cooled a room better than the brand new fan we had purchased just days before.  That new fan didn’t survive to make the move to our current home, but the little Emerson still gets used every day in the summer.  It’s a perfect reminder that we don’t actually need fancy or excess in our lives.  Reliability, simplicity, contentment—of these things I am a big fan.

Scenes From a Tractor Graveyard

Georgetown, TX