Letter to a Home Town - What do I tell Her?

On the May 23^rd Elliot Roger went on a killing spree in a California college town. On May 26^th, my Daughter the Elder turned 13. These two events should have nothing to do with each other, but they do. Elliot Roger’s motive was clearly documented. Among other things his misogynistic rants and writings detailed how he wanted to enact retribution on women for rejecting his advances. By all estimations my daughter is becoming a woman. 

The extreme actions of Elliot Roger, while obviously those of a mentally disturbed individual, did not happen in a vacuum. There is an undeniably misogynistic layer of our culture that deeply impacts the way that women live their everyday lives. Not all men participate in the degradation of women, but enough do that all women are taught to prepare themselves physically and mentally for the seemingly inevitable.

As she becomes a woman, what do I tell my daughter about the way she dresses? Do I praise her modesty when she chooses to wear shorts that come below the knee? I know it is because she is not yet comfortable in her changing body. Puberty is awkward for everybody. I want her to be comfortable in her skin but at the same time I feel a sense of relief at her choice to dress in a way that does not convey overt sexuality. It is safer because, welcome or not, that new body will draw attention.

As she becomes a woman, what do I tell my daughter about keeping her body safe? Do I remind her that her years of martial arts training can help to protect her in case of an assault?  I know that she would not hesitate to defend herself from a stranger, but if it were someone she knows… She doesn’t like to cause a scene. I want her to feel secure in her ability to defend herself even if that person is someone she or we thought was trustworthy. How do I do that without implying that no one is trustworthy?

As she becomes a woman, what do I tell my daughter about saying what she means? Do I keep encouraging her to speak up, assuring her that her voice will be heard? How can I not feel a tinge of hypocrisy when she tells me she has been coached to yell “fire” before “help” because it is a more effective way to get people to respond? All I can truly assure her is that I will listen…

There is little solace to be found in tragedies like this: the death of six people and injury of 13 others at the hands of a deranged man with a vendetta against women… Except maybe it will help to uncover the depth of damage being done to men and women by the misogynistic layer of our culture. And maybe if it can be seen it can be changed for all of our daughters - and sons.

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Letter To A Home Town - The Science of Thanksgiving

Twisted Paper Bag Thank You Tree

 

 

The Science of Thanksgiving

 

Ahhh Thanksgiving: that glorious celebration of hedonism in honor of our foremothers and forefathers. What a wonderful way to pay homage! 

That could be sarcasm, but for once it is not. (Though it is easy to poke fun at a holiday marked by excessive consumption followed by napping.) The way I see it the hedonic quality of the day has the potential to be a positive thing. I know it doesn’t sound that way, but hear me out. There is some science to what I am saying.

Hedonism is, by definition, the belief that pleasure and happiness are the most important goals in life. This doesn’t sound so bad by itself, but hedonism is often associated with self-centered excessive behaviors in the quest for happiness. That is the downfall part. Happiness is a matter of perspective and some people are bound to overdo it.

In psychology there is a theory related to this called hedonic adaptation. In laymen’s terms it goes something like this. Everyone has a baseline of happiness. We hit that baseline by doing what we always do. If we experience significant positive or negative things it will impact our level of happiness, but only so long as those things do not become the norm. If they do become the norm (doing what we always do), we acclimate and that new normal becomes what is needed to achieve base happiness. It is a bit like jumping into a pool. Even if it seemed cold at first, you get used to the water.

This of course begs the question, if we always return to a stasis then how do we achieve greater happiness? One sure way is to actively plan out positive experiences that break normal patterns. This is where Thanksgiving fits in.

Not only is Thanksgiving an invitation to break from our normal routine, there is an increasing body of research pointing to gratitude as a vehicle for happiness. It is being found that people who consistently practice gratitude have lower blood pressure, higher immune systems, feel less isolated and experience more optimism, joy and happiness. That’s right – when on a hedonistic quest for pleasure and happiness it will serve your purpose to show appreciation for what you have and those who helped you out along the way!

I encourage everyone, when you get together with family and friends this week (and in your everyday), raise the bar. Make sure the people in your life that matter hear that from you. Tell a story of how someone right there at the table made a positive influence on you. Make a poster of things you are thankful for and invite everyone to add to it. Let grace last the whole meal instead of hold up dinner. Most of all, let your quest for happiness be laced with gratitude.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

               I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Letters to a Home Town - My Tweenager

My Tweenager on a Family Outing

 

My Daughter the Elder just had a birthday. She turned twelve. It was a pretty standard birthday, but to hear her tell it, it was a life changing event. On that day she was thrust, (or maybe she leapt) over the threshold of childhood. Now she is an almost-but-not-quite-may-as-well-be-close-enough-can’t-you-just-say-I-am-a teen. Apparently being called a tween when you are twelve just isn’t cool.

Not much that I do is cool these days. She lives in perpetual fear that I am going to embarrass her. When she invites friends over she makes me swear that I’ll behave. When the doorbell rings she gives me that look before she answers. She takes phone calls into another room just in case I decide to play the peanut gallery and make comments on the side. I am a high risk of anti-cool.

Now that she is twelve she is making it abundantly clear that if I ever want the chance to hang out with my big girl again, I had better shape up. Peer pressure is not limited to her fellow classmates; she is muscling me. No more fart jokes. Adults aren’t supposed to think those are funny. The wardrobe; it needs some serious adjustments. And just because you know what the Harlem Shake is DOES NOT mean you can demonstrate in public!

There are of course exceptions. It is permissible to hang out at home - when no one else is around, and she isn’t on the phone, or the computer, or tablet. We can go to the store together - as long as I am buying the items of her choosing. And we can do ‘other stuff’ as long as it is far, far, far, far from home so that the chance of bumping into any of her classmates is absolutely nil.

She is, of course, making her own way into awesomeness. At twelve, it is all about the look. She has dipped into the wardrobe that her big brother left behind; freaking the tomboy style. Her short tousled hair now has a red flare thanks to some temporary dye (next week it may be purple or green). Most importantly she now has the ultimate teen accessory; for her birthday she got a phone. (This gift would have elevated me into the ranks of coolness – If I have made it – but I didn’t. The phone came from her dad thus buying him forgiveness for being seen together in public any time soon).

To spite all of the fresh effort being dedicated to cultivating cool, that day when she turned twelve wasn’t the start of it. My Daughter the Elder has been that way for a while now. She likes sushi. She is a purple belt in mixed martial arts. She gives great hugs. And she has a wonderful sense of humor. (Don’t tell anyone but sometimes she even laughs at my fart jokes.)

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

I Love You Little Bit Purple

 

 

"I love you little bit purple!" she tells me with her head tucked under my chin and arms wrapped as far around as she can reach.

 

I do not know how or why she decided that colors would be the means by which she measures love. It has been that way almost since she learned to recognize them by name. Who am I to argue? It is not as though I have a better system to offer. No matter how wide I open my arms, how high I reach, how many kisses I dispense, I could never accurately describe or measure my love for her. Color seems as good of a way as any to quantify. 

 

"I love you little bit orange." I tell her in return. "Yeah" she mumbles into my chest "and a whole lot green."

Letter to a Home Town - The Seemingly Endless Journey of Potty Training

Our sleep anywhere girl...

 

It is never going to end! I am almost sure of it: Potty training is an everlasting process and I am destined to have a key role in keeping that little bottom clean for all of eternity. I know it isn’t true, but gads, it sure does feel that way. We have been actively potty training for more than half of the Figlet’s short life!

The duration is, in many ways, our own fault. The interest was there early, so we jumped at the opportunity. We set the potty up in back corner of the kitchen (the room central to it all). We had a few no pants days. Much to our surprise, it worked. It wasn’t 100% but she started using the potty pretty regularly. It was cause for celebration! We danced. We sang. We composed odes to the long forgotten diapers of yore. But then the weather got cold. Pants became more essential. She had trouble getting them down. More importantly, Figlet got bored and digressed. She wasn’t as ready as we’d hoped.

Sometimes I think that those guys that wear their pants down around their thighs are mocking me. They know how much bare bottom I have seen. Somehow they sense it. They know how happy I would be to never again have to deal with anyone rushing with pants round knees, leaving a dribble trail en route to the potty. They sense my fleeting hope of it ever ending and threaten to drop trou just to rub it in.

When warm weather arrived, her interest began to rekindle. The dusty potty in the kitchen corner saw increasingly regular use. The diaper count dwindled to half what it had once been, remaining essential only for overnights and outings. The potty traveled with us when we went away for a few days but was largely ignored. Using the potty was a home thing, which was progress. But then it wasn’t. It was just a stand still.  

When it comes to potty training, my present self laughs at the self of the recent past. You thought THAT was going to be the last case of diapers you’d buy?! You thought that pull ups would be anything more than poorly fitting diapers that are a pain to get on? You thought that calling training pants ‘fancy pants’ it would be incentive to keep them dry? You thought that you’d be done with this by now? Bwah, ha, ha! You have been through this before! You should have known that the Figlet would dash such dreams into a puddle on the floor - repeatedly!

I do know that potty training won’t last forever. The Figlet is making progress again. At home and on short outings ‘fancy pants’ are the rule. Accidents happen. When they do, I give our washing machine a little hug, the then remind myself the potty training golden rule: It will be over before her college applications are due.

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Why....

I don’t want to talk about it. Can’t I just write about Christmas? Or the end of the world? I had some really witty lines about being out of time and the holiday to-do lists that the zombies would find. I don’t want to talk about it, but I know that I have to… This week writing about anything other than the Sandy Hook Massacre would be disrespectful.

Right now everyone knows. On Friday December 14th, 2012 Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother then drove to an elementary school and took 26 more lives, most of them less than 8 years old. What everyone doesn’t know is why. The last life he took was his own. We can’t even ask him.

It is instinct in times like this to hold our children more tightly and remind them that they are loved. We stop, listen and interact with them on a level a bit deeper than we did the day before. We soften the message with hugs and kisses, but what we are telling them is that if they were gone tomorrow, the hole left behind would be unimaginable.

My children include a two year old deep in the stage of “Why?” She asks the question incessantly. “Why?” is daddy going to work. “Why?” can’t she have another cookie. “Why?” does she have to let the kitten go when she is holding her upside down by paw and tail. Each explanation is met with a follow up question; another round of “why?”

This week I have realized how much she reflects us in the face of tragedy.  “Why did he do it?” “Why didn’t someone see the signs?” “Why did he have access to so much weaponry?” “Why hasn’t he/we/them/us/they/you/she/me done something to prevent things like this?” Each attempt at an answer brings forward another round of “why?”

We try our best to answer the questions. “Why?” is so simple yet to answer it honestly the explanation must be complex; sometimes so complex we cannot fully comprehend. We grab for any explanation that makes sense. How do you comprehend the incomprehensible?

My daughter’s incessant questioning only ceases when she reaches an answer that suits her. Here too she a reflection of us. We settle on explanations that fit our world view: gun control, mental health care, school security, parenting, religion, video games, the list goes on. No matter how woefully incomplete our personal explanations may be, we hold tight to them. Action can only happen when we have an explanation and we need to take action now.

I hope that we can and will take meaningful action to prevent anything like this happening again, but in order to do so we must come to some agreement on the causes. I don’t know the answer, but I do know that if we stop the conversation with an authoritarian “Because” we will never get there. We must stop, listen and interact with each other on a level a bit deeper than we did the day before this tragedy. To do anything other would be disrespectful.

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Morning Glory Seeds

 

To spite poor conditions and neglect, from mid summer into fall our back fence is graced with pink, blue and purple morning glories. It is December now. The last blossoms are gone. Hanging from the vines are paper thin orbs backed by crisp stars; gracefully wrapped packages of potential waiting for spring. Sleeping beauties...

What Sandy Left Behind

After the Hurricane

 

Surreal. I am not sure if there is a better word to describe it.

A week ago we were preparing for a hurricane. It was a halfhearted effort as we danced back and forth across the line between preparedness and hype. For as long as I have lived here severe weather events could be described by words like: inconvenient, uncomfortable, or an adventure (like sleeping in the back yard as a kid was an adventure). The danger aspect of storms was isolated and short lived (unless someone acted stupid – and there are always a few who do). It wasn’t that New Yorkers didn’t think it could happen here, as my Companion pointed out; it is just that it never had…

Then, under the light of the full moon, in came Sandy with the tide…

Even after the worst storms things are back to a relative normal here in a few days… Call it denial, willful ignorance, arrogance: call it whatever you want but most people here really expected Sandy to be the same - Even after it hit… Even after the lights went out… Even when they woke the next day and looked around… Even after they saw the pictures on TV…  But here it is almost a week later and things aren’t back to normal… Normal will sooner be redefined…

We – my family and I - are blessed to be in a place that has been relatively unaffected. It has been inconvenient, uncomfortable, a bit of an adventure but nothing perilous. But the other three sides of our block and a lot of other patches in our neighborhood are still without power. A mile south of us, flooded basements are being gutted in hopes of minimizing mold and contamination. Beyond that is the Queens war zone sans enemy; Broad Channel, Rockaway, Far Rockaway, Breezy Point… Top it off those areas can only be reached, coming or going, by car. Even if you have one, and less here do than don’t, gas is getting harder to come by… 

New Yorkers do not take kindly to being called victims. Let me let you in on a secret – no-one does! The title of “Victim” implies powerless, helpless, weak. Even when voiced by the best intentioned, it creates a sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’. “Victim” is an impediment. It gives the power to the helper. In the face of a task so daunting, we need to feel empowered. Call your neighbors neighbors. Call your friends friends. Heck – you can call a stranger a stranger who you can see needs a hand. Help is easier to give than to ask for. The word “Victim” can make it harder…

Right now, as I write this, there are a lot of people who need a hand. Many have never had to ask for help beyond their immediate family before. Few have ever faced a situation like they are facing now. Some are behaving poorly in the face of adversity. Most are behaving honorably. Even those like my family, who were effected minimally by the storm itself, are facing residual and unexpected challenges. We are all moving forward towards the new normal.

No one is quite sure what it is going to feel like - but we are sure that life hasn’t gotten back to it yet. Normal doesn’t feel so surreal.

 

Six Ways to Respond
 

Send a care package or an envelope with $20 in it to a random address at the edge of an impacted zone. Ask the addressee to use or deliver to a family in need. Trust that stranger to do what is right.

Support a small business or Etsy vendor in an effected area by ordering holiday gifts from them.

Foster a pet for a displaced family.

When people are tired, upset, lost, angry, cold, confused, etc, acknowledge that no-one is at their best when they feel that way and don’t take it personally.

When you are tired, upset, lost, angry, cold, confused, etc try not to take it out on others.

Send thank-you letters to first responders.

 

Everything is Dangerous - Letter to a Home Town

Way Back in the 70's

Everything is Dangerous These Days

“US Doctors Say Trampolines are a Danger toKids” Ummm ok. I have to wonder: Is there some new risk with trampolines that makes this newsworthy? Have strange trampolines started stalking our kids, following them home from school, offering them candy? Do doctors in Canada feel the same way? If more parents taught their kids the Five Little Monkeys song would fewer heads be bumped? Is anything considered safe these days?

Wow. I suddenly feel old. I am on the verge of one of those ‘Back in my day’ rants where the crazy old lady goes on about how when we were kids our parents let us roam like wild chickens, trusting that our pea sized brains would lead us back to roost at night. If I am not careful I will follow that up with a tale of how there was no crime and everyone was happy and fit and how it would still be that way if it wasn’t for the fact that Scooby Doo and those meddling kids quit going to church.

It is true that back my day I didn’t have a trampoline. I wasn’t allowed to jump on the beds either. (Strangely enough, I don’t remember being warned about hurting myself, just about breaking the bed.) When it came to finding means of potentially injury I was left to my own devices. I did things like tie a rope between two tree tops and try to scale across. I tested the thickness of ice by kicking through it. I was confident that bales of hay and stunt landing pads were interchangeable. I was a free range kid to the extreme and I survived for the most part unscathed. (As a parent I look back and wonder how).

Ideally our kids get the benefit of learning from our mistakes. In turn they get to make a whole new set of their own, thereby advancing into adulthood twice as mature and well adjusted as we did. (But wait… That would mean admitting to all that dumb stuff we did and they might tell our parents. Never mind.)

Left to their own device, the dumb stuff kids do has real world consequences, most of which are not a matter of life or death. Doing things and experiencing the consequences teaches how to navigate through fears and illustrates the difference between real and perceived risk. Fear has a lot of sway in the choices we make all through life, so this is a good skill to have.

Now my caveat: survival to spite youthful ignorance regarding the true danger of a given action is not good reason to let your own kids do the same dumb stuff. Kids, do not kick through ice to test its thickness. Trust me. Walking home in winter boots filled with water is no fun and I am glad I was close to the bank. Also, bales of hay are a close approximation to a stunt landing pad, but stuntmen have a lot of training (and an ambulance on site).

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Life as a 2 Year Old - Letter to a Home Town

This Letter was written about 6 months ago, but after a 40 minute stand-off regarding retrieval of some airborne art supplies earlier this week... It seems as timely as ever.

Life as a 2 Year Old

It is hard to believe, but the once Figlet about to turn two! Can it really be true?! It seems like just yesterday that I was thinking “What have I gotten myself into?!”  Now as soon as the house gets quiet I find myself wondering “What has she gotten herself into?!” Life before she came along was far from dull, but life with a 2 year old... I am being taken along on her ride through life in the impulse zone!  

To be 2 is to not be able to see even a few moments into the future. I am hungry and grumpy and you have served me food on the green plate. I wanted the blue plate and therefore this food must be emptied off the offending dinnerware. Where?! I don’t care! How about the floor! What do you mean there is no more? Can’t you see that I am hungry?

To be 2 is to always be moving on to the next best thing. Plink plunk on the piano keys. Belly flop on the beanbag chair. The baby doll needs shoes. Mom, help me put them on. I am going to chase the cat. Did you hear my 3 word sentence? I said “Cat knee ow!” Yes, I could use a mommy hug. Put me down now. I have to pee.

To be 2 is to have no modesty. Every day should be a no pants day! Why do you keep trying to put clothes on me?! My potty is in the kitchen, right where it should be. Every time I use it, you sing and dance for me! I follow you into the bathroom (when you will let me), and do a dance for you. Everyone should sing a happy song when they poo!

To be 2 is to discover what you want and how to say it. I like apples and oranges and I can ask for both by name. I like strawberries, but those I have to show you. I like cream of wheat. I call it ‘hot’ just like you do. When I say ‘chickies’ and bring you my shoes, you know that I want to go outside to play. When I say ‘Eee-eee ‘Orge’ I want to watch Curious Georges. I like him. He is a funny monkey like me. If you gave us typewriters we could write novels. Mine would be 5 words. His would be 3.

To be 2 is to take on life’s lessons – the ones that take a lifetime to learn. I am learning to share, learning to care, learning who I am and how to take care of me.  I am learning patience – with myself and others. I am learning that a smile keeps on going. I am learning that everyone is growing, or at least they could be, and they should be. I am also learning that if I ever want to find out what is in that drawer, I have to make just a little noise or you will wonder what I am getting into.

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

"Oh 5h1t!"? - Letter to a Home Town

Our Very Patient and Very Loved '2-Pid Tat' Rena

Olivia, the newest of the chickens, hopped on top of the composter, then made ready to jump the fence into the neighbor’s yard. I was worried and annoyed. Part of the unspoken agreement I have with my neighbor about the chickens is that they stay on our side of the fence. I had already clipped Olivia’s wings, but the allure of a safe haven from the flock bullies set her small mind in motion to find another way.  Seeing what she was about to do, the Figlet called out as I had so many times before “2-pid Chickie!”

It was contextual. It was eloquent. It was very nearly properly annunciated. It was funny. But as much as it made us giggle, it was also the proverbial warning shot. When I lofted the “2-pid tat!” from the bed for using me as a scratching post while we were reading stories, we knew it was time for the language police to start walking the beat.  

Apparently there was an episode of Modern Family called “Little Bo Bleep” that aired last winter and cause quite a stir. I can’t comment on it. We don’t have a TV. I also can’t blame the TV for any colorful additions to the Figlet’s vocabulary. Seeing as she doesn’t go to daycare, we can’t blame that either. The culpability sits squarely on our laps here at home.

The language police were doing a pretty good job throughout the spring. The pets apparently got smarter. “Please”, “Thank you” and “Excuse Me” all made their debut. Aside from being told a few times that I have a “Nice butt-butt” while getting dressed, the Figlet’s language development would make a pastor proud. (Okay, so there was that one widely publicized and highly overrated incident posted on Facebook by my Companion, but we don’t talk about that.)  

Then, a couple of weeks ago when the language police were looking the other way, something slipped out of hand onto the kitchen floor and “Oh 5h1t!” slipped out too. No sooner was it said that it was repeated. My companion and I looked at one another in a collective effort not to laugh. The language police rushed to the scene of the crime, but it was too late.    

The following week at the beach, crouching down letting the water lap at her feet, a wave just big enough to knock her over did just that. Out of the salty spray came the unmistakable words “Oh 5h1t!” It was contextual. It was eloquent. It was properly annunciated. It was funny. It was also hard evidence that removing the phrase from our own vocabulary and straight faced efforts of non-reaction weren’t going to be enough to alter her behavior this time.

At the urging of the language police, now when something falls, it gets sound effects. More often than not, that sound effect starts with an S; “Oh Shazbot!”or “Oh Sploosh!” It isn’t the easiest thing to condition ourselves to, but it has one big advantage: when the Figlet comes out with a creative expletive alternative, it is perfectly acceptable to laugh!  

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

The Ultimate Hide-a-Veggie Recipe - A Letter to a Home Town

My Family Says I Try to Hide Veggies in Everything!

In honor of Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day (August 8th) here is a Letter from the archives.

Those with a garden of significant size can tell you: now is the season of bounty! Veggies abound in midsummer. Tomatoes shine like red Christmas balls on the vine. Carrots have grown beyond wee fingerlings. Summer squashes could squish out every other dish on the table.

Thanks to the CSA I mentioned a while back, even without a garden of our own, this year we are lucky enough to partake as though we had. The quantity of fresh vegetables delivered weekly reflects the bounty of the season. (Bonus: knowing it would cost far more if we bought them at the grocery store.)

Contrary to planting our own garden, we had no say over what seeds were sown in spring. The result is that nearly every week we receive some vegetable that I have no experience preparing: garlic scapes, purple kale, fava beans, etc. I consider this incentive for culinary exploration. I am also thankful that my companion has an adventurous pallet!

Along with the unusual, sometimes the sheer quantity of produce presents a challenge. Nearly every dish I have prepared over the past few weeks, from stuffed eggplant to fresh squeezed lemonade, has contained fresh basil. One week’s surplus of cucumbers became refrigerator pickles for the elder kids to enjoy when they come home from their upstate adventures. Lately the challenge has been how to use the gluttony of zucchini.

Excess zucchini is not an unfamiliar experience. Zucchini grows well in the North East. Almost everyone with space enough grows them. This means a bumper crop in one garden is a bumper crop in every garden. This inevitably leads to sneaking zucchini onto neighbor’s porches in the dead of night; a well meaning, yet desperate measure that an unyielding overabundance of zucchini may yield.

Thankfully zucchini is a versatile and easily disguised vegetable. (Come to think of it, I don’t remember Grandma ever making plain zucchini.) Zucchini bread was the first thing I made (Joan’s recipe from the church cookbook.) I’ve snuck it into omelets. It is a staple in stir fry. Marinated in Italian dressing, it is fabulous on the grill (an idea borrowed from Aunt Patty). With eggplant in the CSA basket, ratatouille is on the menu. My latest endeavor: Chocolate Zucchini Cookies - an ultimate hide-a-veggie treat! Just in case anyone else is looking for a way to use up some zucchini…

Chocolate Zucchini Cookies

* 1/2 cup butter *1/2 cup white sugar *1/2 cup brown sugar *1 egg *1 teaspoon vanilla extract *2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour *1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder *1 teaspoon baking soda *2 cups grated zucchini

Mix butter, egg, vanilla & sugars – then the baking soda and cocoa then the zucchini and finally the flour. Drop rounded spoonfuls onto baking sheet the bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. Makes about 3 dozen.

Optional additions – a scant cup of chocolate chips in the batter or swipe of cream cheese frosting on top. If a veggie hater asks what the green stuff in them is, tell them it’s apple.

             I hope this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Somewhere Between Here and There - Letter to a Home Town

It has been a long time since I traveled alone with just a toddler in tow. She frets and plays on the long ride, but mostly she sleeps the trip away. For me, the sole driver, life is suspended for the passage of miles. I imagine myself caught in an elevator between floors. The only real difference is that I have some control over what music plays. My monkey mind dances to the tune.

The car is packed to the roof with North Country fare. There are enough fresh picked blueberries to both eat and freeze. The syrup alone makes up for a passenger. But mostly the seats of absent passengers are filled with things from my grandparent’s house. There has to be a metaphor in that somewhere.             

It has been eight months since Grandpa died. The arduous task of sifting, sorting, distributing is beginning to wind down. I claim no credit here. The burdens and privileges were for a generation before mine. Now the estate sale is just a few weeks away. My Grandparents left no shortage of interesting and useful things.

Price tags on memories. The possessions are in a state of flux: personal belongings are transforming into assets of the estate. It is all just stuff now; stuff that they left behind. Now that the immediate family has taken choice, strangers will be able to pay dollars for leftover things. Dollars will wash the memory trail clean. In another house they will begin a new life with new meaning.

My traveling companion will have no memory of her Great Grandparents. I shift the rearview mirror to glimpse at her sleeping face. Right now the blueberries have more meaning in her world. They are her new favorite fruit. The family bible, the tiny china dolls, the smocked pillow mean nothing yet. They are stepping stones I have collected for traveling into the world that came before her. One day she will use them to prompt us, and we will share our memories. Lessons of heritage come through heirlooms.

My dad handed me the box marked “Grandpa Yandeau’s Candy Jar” with instructions. It needs to be filled with hard candy, specifically butterscotch flavor (with the possible exception of Horehound). He recalled how Grandpa Yandeau would use a hammer to break hard candy, then share the pieces small enough that he couldn’t choke on them. Grandpa Yandeau was my Grandma’s father. He was short, a veteran, worked on the railroad and they lived in Rochester. I have no memories of him of my own.

The lights and city traffic pull my monkey mind into the present. Highway driving is better suited for deep thought. The elevator, once stuck, lurches into motion. In two word sentence structure my traveling companion requests “music off”. I pull up in front of our apartment in a car load of North Country fare and memories. I am happy to see my companion by the door waiting to help me unload.  

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Cousins Week - Letter to a Home Town

Cousin Art Time

I don’t want to! I am digging in my heels! I am balling my fists! I am sticking out my bottom lip! I don’t want to get out of the lake and dry off! I don’t want to go and write my column! I want to keep playing! This is my cousin time! Sigh. Okay. I’ll get to it. But first watch me jump off the dock just one more time.

I was the only grandchild for 8 years. That is a long time. When others told the tales of summer get-aways and gatherings with all the cousins their own age, I always felt a little left out. It wasn’t that I didn’t get to go places and do things. I just didn’t have any cousins my age.

There were advantages to being a singleton. I got to go all kinds of places with a lot of different family members. Just one kid, especially one who is adept at self entertainment, is pretty easy to take along. I got to go to Canada and to Michigan. I got spoiled in all the households we visited where their own children had grown.

When I was 8 my first cousin came along. It was pretty cool for the first year or two. She was cute and didn’t do much. I got attention for giving her attention. The thing is she got older and some claimed even cuter. As far as I was concerned she was quickly becoming decidedly less fun and more bother. A 3 year old tag-along was not my 11 year old idea of an ideal playmate.

8 years is a lifetime when you are 8. When I was 16 I was I twice her age (and I knew everything). When I had my first kid, 8 years behind she was still a kid. When she had her first kid, I was a seasoned mommy with two.  A funny thing was happening though: with each year, 8 years became less and less of a gap. These days 8 years may as well be 8 months. She even has more kids than me!

Hosted by our uncles (YAY!), this week we are at Trout Lake. Five adults, three teens, two tweens and four under four; the house is filled to the rafters with cousins. Breakfast goes on for a couple of hours as the seemingly endless stream of bodies awake. Like ants to a melon rind we trail to the lake to swim and play all morning. The melting pot of ages and stages means enough eyes, hands and laps that everyone gets some free time and me time. I have even gotten to write this column virtually undisturbed.

You’ll pardon me now. I must sign off. I want to go check on my daughter the elder. Her 3 year old cousin has been trailing her all day and a 3 year old tag along when you are 11… I have a hunch she’d appreciate a break.  

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Cousin Play Time

Life as A Venn Diagram - Letter to a Home Town

Margret "Peggy" Walsh

I envision our lives as a Venn diagram; a dome like bubble over each of us, with a fat flower petal where we overlap. In my mind’s eye they are filled with colored light. My companion and I are yellow and blue. The petal that we share shines with the green of spring time. That is where we are now, in that place where our lives intersect. This is the way it might always be, but in this moment I am distinctly aware.

This past week his life has been dominated by his mothers rapidly failing health. She reached that point when loved ones were called to gather. All seven of her children came to spend time. No one needed to be reminded that each day might be her last.

In the windows of time he pushed open he visited her in the hospital. He missed work, dinners and family outings. He arrived home tired or wired or sometimes both. I ask him how it was. “Quiet” he’d tell me. Inside the dome of her last days words were oft spoken in hushed tone.

I am in the supporting role. I take up as much of the slack as I can; making sure meals are available to accommodate random schedules, the right clothes are clean, that the tasks of daily life are taken care of. Even time with the Figlet, at least the hours based on the hours I work, becomes optional. He rearranges priorities as needed. I get flustered when there are things I cannot remove from his path. It highlights the strength of our partnership; still I am relieved that this is a temporary situation. 

In our Venn diagram, the place where we overlap keeps growing. This year we have added supporting each other in time of death. In my grandfathers final days when the family took turns sitting bedside he was there for me. He kept little ones occupied, dried dishes, held me tight. He helped to assure that the tasks of daily life were taken care of so that I could rearrange priorities as needed.

On the day that they thought his mother was out of the woods, she’d only just come to the meadows edge for a last clear glimpse of the sun. Both she and my Grandfather died in a way that most of us hope that we would: without prolonged suffering, with family nearby, and with dignity. They left this world buoyed by the love of their children and grandchildren – the same love that kept them anchored in life.

What if all of our lives are a great Venn diagram, overlapping here, there everywhere? What if all of the colors that surround us in this world are the petals of light where we all overlap? What if a soul could overflow with color fed by the ways they touched others? What if a rainbow is one of those souls ascending, leaving streaks of light color across the sky?

Margret Walsh, mother of my companion, left a rainbow.

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Letter to a Home Town - April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

This is the 'Letter' that was published in last week's Gouverneur Tribune Press. Sometimes I write about serious stuff... 

Last week’s headline overshadowing my designated corner of page 4 read in bold font “Sex... It’s time to write about it!” I am taking it as a sign. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

It went through my mind several times that this could be the subject of my next column. I shied away from it. It is too personal. It is too political. It is potentially inflammatory. It isn’t dinner table conversation.  But we should be talking about it. We should be admitting it happens. We should be taking steps to prevent it. We should be actively creating a culture where it is not acceptable or expected behavior. All too often we don’t. Today I am.

The trajectory of my life has been intrinsically impacted by sexual abuse. This is something that I am neither proud nor ashamed of. I am not inviting judgment. It is simply a fact. I would venture to say that your life has been impacted too. Sexual assault is a persistent issue in our culture, urban, rural and everywhere in-between. Though the experience may not be first hand, rarely, if ever, does someone escape the influence.

We are surrounded by images of sex; in commercials, in movies, on TV, in music, in video games, on the internet, in magazines, on billboards. In contrast sex isn’t something we are comfortable talking about. We dread the day we have ‘the talk’ with our kids (as if the knowledge and moral boundaries we hope they will exercise could be passed on in a single conversation). Education is often limited to the mechanics peppered with some vague concepts called love and commitment.

When it comes to sexual assault, the conversation is most often framed as how to protect yourself and what to do if it happens to you or someone you care about. Conversations are overwhelmingly aimed at women (and girls). Words like ‘victim’, ‘guilt’ and ‘blame’ come up a lot. These conversations are important. They reinforce the fact that it is not okay for someone to use sex as a weapon of dominance against you.

It is also not okay to wield the weapon, but how do we have that conversation? How do we teach the potential offender not to be? How do we define the line between sex appeal and objectification? How do we encourage and award a show of respect and self control? How do perpetuate the setting, communication and respect of personal boundaries? How do we define consent? How do we create an atmosphere in which the act of sex is expected to be a mutual decision guided by accurate information and personal moral boundaries?

I don’t have an answer, but I do know that no problem is ever solved by denial and silence. Sexual assault is a persistent issue in our culture. We have a lot of differing opinions about sex and sexuality, but most everyone will agree: a weapon of dominance is not what it should be. It shouldn’t be awkward to talk about that.

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Letters to a Home Town "A Pie for Pi Day" (with a recipe for Maple Apple Pie)

It was recently noted that I had not yet shared any recipes on my blog, so I went in search of a Maple one in honor of the season. What I found was this Letter from almost exactly 2 years ago - A pie for Pi day!


A Pie for Pi Day

  I didn’t even know it was a holiday until a few years ago. Unless you are a bit of a nerd, there is a good chance that you have overlooked it too; March 14th is Pi Day (aka π Day).
            For those who could use a refresher, Pi is a mathematical (and physical) constant representative of the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. Numerically it is equal to 3.14159265358979323846……. For most math, science and engineering calculations, 3.14159 is close enough. For purposes of celebration, 3.14 or March 14th is perfect! (A bonus: It also happens to be Einstein’s birthday.)
So what does one do in celebration of Pi Day? Well, make and eat pies of course! Pies come in all kinds: cherry, rhubarb, mincemeat, pecan, shepherd’s, key lime, peach, and don’t forget pizza pie! Everyone has a favorite.
Our current household favorite is a Maple Apple Pie. A concoction inspired by a late night pregnancy craving, this pie is a conglomeration of multiple recipes referenced but not followed.
In honor of the Pi day just passed, and maple sugaring season in full swing, here is an approximation of how it is made, (editorial comments included).
Maple Apple Pie (9”)
 Crust
1 stick Butter
¼ c Maple Syrup
1-1/4 c Flour
Mix it all up, make it into a ball and set in a cool place.
(I have heard that if you are partial to a flaky crust then the butter should still be hard. I let the butter get soft because I don’t have an electric mixer it makes my life easier.)
Filling
5 or 6 Medium sized Apples (I am partial to Macintosh)
1/4c Maple Syrup
½ tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Cinnamon (if you’re like me and aren’t very good at shaking an even coating - mix with 1 tsp Sugar)
Peel and slice the apples and put them in a big bowl. (Keep in mind that how many you need is directly proportional to how many slices eaten as you cut.)  Mix together Maple Syrup and Vanilla pour it over the apples. Toss it all around until apples are completely coated. Set aside and pull out the ball ‘o crust.
 Roll out ½ the dough for the bottom crust and put it a 9” pie pan. (Stir the apples and syrup again any time you think of it)  Dump about half of the apples into the crust, dust with a light coating of cinnamon (and sugar), then add the rest of the apples and dust them with the remaining cinnamon. Roll out the rest of the dough and make a top crust (I make lattice crusts because solid ones always rip when I try to put them on – and because lattice crusts look cool). Bake at 350˚ for about 25 min. (until the crust turns golden).
Happy belated Pi Day!   
            I hope this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

The Rabbit...

She gazed into the silk lined trunk then turned to me with a perplexed look. “I understand the rabbit, and the top hat,” she said, “but why the shoe horn?”
I hesitated. The rabbit had come from the back shelf of a second hand store, grumpy, old and stuck in his ways. I had repeatedly attempted to bribe him with treats in an effort to gain his cooperation. Instead of raising his spirits and gaining his favor, my actions had yielded only an irritable, uncooperative, and grossly obese rabbit. The shoe horn was the only way I’d found to get him in and out of the hat.
“Magicians wear tight shoes.” I stated.
“Oh.” She replied with a nod, and clicked the latches of the trunk closed.