Fancy Schmancy, Know-it-all Nancy.

For someone who only knew how to make grilled cheese sandwiches and brownies for the first half of her life, I've developed a surprisingly intimate relationship with cooking magazines in the past decade or two.  Granted, simply subscribing to a magazine does not guarantee that a person becomes a master chef--or even a passable one-- but I have certainly learned a thing or two from these publications over the years.

. . . although I've never quite figured out how to say the word "Savuer."

Which is probably why I let that subscription expire recently.

As though it wasn't bad enough that I once had to look up the words "haricot verts" (what us simple folk would call "green beans"),  I don't even know how to properly reference the magazine that used that hoity toity term.  Yeah, I'm a fickle subscriber who actually expects to understand most of the words tucked between the glossy covers.

Truth is, I have always been suspicious of fifty-cent words stapled to penny-candy items.  And, really, who can blame me? I mean, I'm the daughter of a journalist, as well as a journalism teacher. That means I break out into an asthma attack simply glancing at a paragraph that includes more than 25 or 30 words.

All the more reason to pity me, considering that I swim in the professional sea of education, an ocean whose waters are gleefully stocked with polysyllabic poppycock.

Why say "work friends" when you can say "colleagues?"  And who wants to tell people "what I did today" when you can enlighten them with an impromptu lecture about your "pedagogical philosophies?"  Did I ever tell you how much I hate the word "pedagogy?"  The mere sound of it sends proletarian paroxysms shivering through my body. (Yeah, I know.  Those are big words.  Never said I was a purist)

I have the same reaction when Alex Trebek--who has all of the answers typed out in front of him!--has the gaul to say "Gaugin" like he just walked out of a Parisian pastry shop.

I'd originally set out to blog about the joys of savoring things, the pleasure of taking the time to take our time.  But nooooo,  I had to find some clever "in," a lead that would catch and captivate. Thus, the reference to Savuer Magazine.  And now look at me.   I've gone and blathered about fancy words instead, wasting my time on the top-tiered fancy cats and their two-dollar terms.

Alex Trebek would be proud.  But me?  I'm feeling a bit queasy.  Or "indisposed," if you will.

Meandering Through My Memory's Lane

The term "memory lane" must have been coined by someone who was wandering the streets of her childhood neighborhood.  As corny as it sounds rolling off the lips, the phrase takes on heady significance when your Nissan Altima is rolling by the only home you knew as a child, the windows cracked wide to let in all those sweet, long-ago days.

Such was my experience last night as I eased off A Street and slowly wound my way up Twin Ridge Road towards Jill's house. 

How is it that I can walk into the school office each afternoon, wondering what it is that I was supposed to do there, only to have a savant's gift for recollection three hours later, remembering names and faces, the sound of someone's long-ago cackling laughter?

. . . and when Duke-now-David looks up from his plate and calls Jill "Pill?"  It is as though someone has cracked open my skull and blown off the dust of some ancient file cabinet whose sun-starved contents finally come to light.

I am lucky indeed to have these childhood friends among me.  Like a favorite, thread-bare shirt, they are still so familiar, so comfortable against my skin.  Mike, whose long, sun-bleached hair is now close cropped, his words--still warm--slightly bent from all those years out east.  Duke-now-David, a heart hastily taped to his sleeve, unable to stave the flow of sweet memories played out in now-faded photos and notes scrawled in childish loops.  Jill-once-Pill--hostess extraordinaire--who, despite acrid memories of my sweaty, young feet, opens her home with the graciousness that only a strong woman knows.

Joy, too, forever Jill's younger, more fashionable sister.  Joy is there, too, now softened and warmed by a life that has not always been easy.  And, finally, there is Jeannie--Mrs. Johnson--whose quiet laugh and loving kindness have warmed me for so many of my 52 years.  That she, too, so readily shares the stories of our youth lived out on warm August nights on Sumner Street?  Her stories assure me that I have not made up the whole thing.  That these people, indeed, are real and my childhood was, indeed, that sparkly and that joyful.

Most friendships are tagged by the locations in which they were formed--we have our "school friends," our "college friends," our "work friends."  Many of these friendships ebb and flow, anchored by a timeline determined by that location.  My "childhood friends," though, should simply be called "my friends," for theirs is a love forged young yet strong, and set for life.  They have endured too much to succumb to the whims of time and place.

Shopping the Apocalypse

We narrowly averted a personal-products crisis in the Holt household earlier this week, when I mistook paper towels for toilet paper.  I have no idea what compelled Mark to buy an 8-pack of paper towels in the first place.  That he stored them where the toilet paper usually goes?  Well, now you're just talking crazy!

I don't believe I have bought 8 rolls of paper towels in my entire life of buying things.  I don't use them.  In fact, I'm always caught a bit off guard when I'm in a friend's kitchen and spy one of those wooden paper-towel holders on the counter  It's as though I've spotted some exotic butterfly I'd only seen in books. My God!   I think to myself, These people use paper towels!

So, given their bulk and odd location, a girl can be forgiven for assuming they were something else, right? 

I sent Mark back to the store yesterday to rectify his earlier mistake.  He came back with a 12-pack of Scott Single-Ply industrial toilet paper.  (I can practically hear some of your lips sneering in derision, you persnickety, two-ply snobs, you). Twelve double rolls of toilet paper for a two-person household.  The audacity!  As though Mark is just tempting the future to quit coming.

I'm nuts about Mark, but his apocalyptic-buying tendencies befuddle me.  It's as though he's finally hitched up the horses and is leaving the soddie for his quarterly trip into town for supplies.  I wave from the porch, hoping neither blizzard nor rattler will take him down before he makes it back home again with his 12-packs of soap, his industrial-sized detergent, his 8 rolls of paper towels.

He says seeing such bulk brings him some measure of comfort. I guess I can sort of see what he's saying. It's the same tenuous argument I occasionally make in defense of purchasing insurance.  It's just good to know we have it, in case we ever need it.  

For now, the Holt household is back in order, all things in their proper place.  And we face our future with the confidence that can only come from an abundance of single-ply prosperity, knowing we have what it takes to survive, until pa once again loads up the cart and heads into town.

Grateful for Owl Play

Local Screech Owls. Photo by Tim Brox

For the past few mornings, I have been regaled by the rhythmic mutterings of a great horned owl that has taken up residence in my neighbor's pine.  Now, I know that his song has not been limited to recent mornings any more than it has been directed towards me specifically, but I still feel fine about taking these serenades as signs for me.

And what exactly do these monotoned musical signs signal? Certainly, the answer is more complicated than the three-note calls I've been enjoying.  On the one hand, these pre-dawn songs act like a fishing lure,--an avian Daredevle Spinnie topped by a three-pronged trouble hook--snagging my mind and not letting go. Viewed through this lens, it seems obvious to me that the owl is pulling me outdoors, calling me to an afternoon spent in tall-grass prairie or tick-infested cottonwood stands.

On the other hand, those three notes leave me filled with longing, knowing my now-absent children are navigating the sometimes rough waters of life "out there"  while I lay atop cool sheets and listen. This interpretation is more difficult for me, since it is much harder to holler instructions from the sidelines than to just hop in the game and grab the ball myself.

But I do not want to live my children's lives for them.  I know this.  And so,  I repeat that thought when I need to, during those times when I hear the distress or isolation in their voices.

Fortunately, sometimes, the avian signs of an early-morning owl song intersect and I find both refreshment and resolution.  Take this afternoon, for instance, when Allison and I have a date with Pioneers Park, where, I suspect, we will alternate between calm silence and quiet anchoring.  It is a salve I am excited to apply.

Tonight, if I remember to pray before I fall asleep, I will give a nod to the neighborhood owls, whose songs both comfort and awaken me.

The Unexpected Advantage of Absence

My dad, a hopeless punster, once told me a drawn-out, miserable joke that ended with the punchline: An abscess makes the fart go "honda."  Like the sticky aftermath of a traumatic experience, I doubt I will ever be able to shake that punchline from my memory.  And, really, that's okay with me.

What I have been reminded of these past few weeks, though, is the original adage from which this bastardization emerged--Absence makes the heart grow fonder.  I realize that, in these cynical, post-modern, meh-riddled days we live in, such simple, old-timey adages can be viewed through a rather dismissive lens.  The fact that they endure at all, though, tells me that they are rooted in some sort of truth that can outlast even these brutal times we live in.

That truth has made itself known to me over and over again, ever since Eric and Allison departed the homey shores of their motherland. 

How else do I explain the solicitous attention both kids have given to Mark and me these past few weeks, framed in what seems to be something like accumulated gratefulness?  Remove them from the home and, upon their return, magical things emerge--dishes done without request or complaint, meals prepared with what almost seems like joy or satisfaction, questions asked about our days, our struggles, our lives.  And then, there's a strange hesitance, too, an unwillingness to let us buy them an outfit or pick up a few groceries for them.

Eric and Allison are not perfect, of course.  Far from it, thank goodness.  But they do seem to have done a pretty fair job of growing into post-Copernican humans who understand that it really isn't all about them.

Selfish as we are, Mark and I never chose a parenting style that was, ultimately, all about us--unless you consider our determination to hand off every rotten chore we ourselves had once been strapped with.  So we are left scratching our noggins of late, wondering how to explain this nice development in the family dynamic.

It almost has the feel of a Penn and Teller trick, something wonderful that lacks any apparent explanation.

This generosity of spirit, it turns out, has been the unexpected silver lining of emptying our nest, the quiet pleasure of watching our fledglings behave in loving, appreciative, grown-up ways that give us confidence in the future.

I won't hold my breath that this comfortable, surprising stasis will continue from here on, but I know now that this good stuff burbles beneath the skin of my children.  And, like a rotten yet well-loved punchline, it will make its appearance again and again in this life I live.

The Cicadian Rhythms of Late Summer

I, for one, am not looking forward to the upcoming Apocalypse that the guy in front of Marcus Theatres keeps announcing.  For one, I just bought a new pair of sandals and I'd really like to break them in before the Big Day. Who wants to meet her maker with bandaids on her heels? Not me, buster.

I'm curious if this doomsayer thinks he's doing us a favor, all wrapped up in his doom-and-gloom duds.  How could anyone possibly enjoy the remaining days knowing that the End Times are just around the corner?

I suppose some people welcome the pronouncement, using it as a wake-up call to start checking off their bucket lists.  But I don't keep a bucket list and, frankly, I don't foresee jotting one down in the near future.

That's why I'm so glad that the cicadas have finally returned!  Their absence, which most of us had noticed--with some alarm--seemed far more damning than any scriptural speeding ticket we could have received.  What did it mean, we asked ourselves in the privacy of our own minds, that our late-summer evenings were punctuated by the absence of droning?

Turns out that this year's crop of cicadas is like my newspaper carrier, not in any particular hurry to deliver the goods.  And, as the old adage goes, better late than never.  Unless it's the newspaper. . . .

Ah, but I digress.  Back to the cicadas and why I'm so dadgum happy that they've returned.

Even if we don't say it aloud, we Midwesterners love our seasonal rhythms.  And it's one of the most endearing things that our environment offers us.  Like sailors circumnavigating the globe using stars not sextants, we Midwesterners keep track of the passage of time with the height of a corn stalk, the first crocus, the meandering line of geese.  The drone of the cicadas.

Take these away or delay their arrival, and we start to get a little nervous.  Not that a Californian would ever recognize the sign of nerves in a Midwesterner. . . .

So it was with private revelry and an extra long sigh of relief that I celebrated this week's returning evensong of Periodic Cicadamorpha (I looked it up).

Turns out, the sky really isn't falling, Chicken Little.  Like their easy-going Midwestern neighbors, the cicadas were just taking their time this year.

Fly Away, Little Ones!

Dear Eric and Allison,

I imagine you in bed this morning, laying atop your sheets with the weight of a new world upon you, unwilling to move because of all that you perceive that is already lost--a rhythm, a steadiness, a place.  I imagine this and want to rouse you, to reassure you that these things run through you, always.

We have tried to raise you to be steady, competent, kind.  Now, lean into these things and trust them.  Let them help you build this new road, and don't be afraid to chink the gaps with new people, new experiences, new knowledge.  I promise that they will not replace what is always there--your family and friends, your sense of "home."  Rather, they will expand you and you will be left gasping, unable to believe that there was room for so much more.

Go and live your lives with courage and confidence, with a willingness to leap, for your wings have not been clipped.  Indeed, they are stronger than ever.

Feelin' Mighty Fine (Mighty Fine Blues) by the Eels