In Praise of Porches

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I am alone, sitting on my screened-in porch perched high above a valley full of horses. I am bundled up to a fare-thee-well against the too-chilly 45-degree weather and there is a soft, chilly rain. But I am not deterred. I have my supplies: my heating pad, a faux fur blanket wrapped around me and tucked in around my legs, a steaming cup of coffee, a bergamot-scented candle burning by my side, a journal, and a good pen. I am trying to squeeze in just a few more days of bearable weather in my favorite spot, overlooking the foothills of the ancient Appalachian mountains in the distance. 

Ah, the screened porch. I am outside, but covered, not bothered by any flying insects. I am inside, but with fresh air, beautiful views, and secluded privacy. I cherish this porch.

When we were planning this house, I entertained having a wrap-around country porch because I often admire big old houses with wide open front porches. An open front porch is like a wide-open smile, a welcoming beacon, an invitation to stop, come up, have a visit. But the more I thought about it, I decided that while we’d have an open deck, I still needed a screened porch because it emits a different kind of energy: it’s private, a refuge, a sanctuary. A screened porch is like a smile with the eyes, the smile a secret garden might give. It, too, is welcoming – I have welcomed many to mine over the years. But unlike an open-air porch, a screened porch is an ensconcement, an enclave. In planning this house, I took inspiration from the book, The Not So Big House, by architect Sarah Susanka, who extols the benefits of having a screened porch room. Having an away spot, removed from the daily shuffle of a busy home, she says, is a thing to treasure. The fact that it is only available for some of the year in northern climes makes it all the more special.

Our previous family home had a lovely backyard screened porch, a step down outside of the family room, nestled behind some bushes. In the twenty-five years we lived there, I took refuge there many times. When my youngest daughter was a newborn, she and I would lie on the couch out there and I would breastfeed her, listening to the sounds of the mourning doves coo-cooing at sunrise and the crickets coming alive every evening. Over the years, I would escape out there to take phone calls away from the busy thrumming of activity inside the house walls. During the pandemic of 2020 we hosted out-of-town cousins from Chicago there, all bundled against the winter cold as we huddled, sitting on chilly cast iron furniture around a too-small space heater that emitted a tiny halo of heat that none of us could really feel. But we were all warmed by the presence of each other, tucked in out there, together.

The screened porch is the ultimate compromise. They're outside, but safely covered from the elements. They’re inside, but free, unencumbered by the formality of a living room. And just like our outdoor shower makes the mundane task of cleaning oneself a joyful, somewhat naughty endeavor, the screened porch makes everyday tasks like reading, working, or journaling way more fun, special, and relaxing.

When we finally did build that screened porch onto our farmhouse, it was really an homage to my mother, who had died only about eight months before. Growing up, my father’s happy place was his brick patio in the backyard, surrounded by begonias, petunias, and family. But my mom was never fully happy out there. Every stinging or biting insect of the season would be drawn to her sweet, pale, Irish skin and feast on her. She would spend most cocktail hours swatting and swearing at the bugs that only she could feel and no one could see. She looked like a crazed airport traffic controller on a tarmac, waving and flapping her arms every which way, fighting them off. She would flee to the safety of the indoors, weepy with indignation, feeling persecuted, sure that my father could be doing something to help her.

One year, he finally did just that, after Mother Nature sent the Blizzard of 1978 upon northeast Ohio. An enormous elm tree fell on the house during that storm, sending a huge branch through the roof of the family room. In repairing the damage, my mother saw an opportunity; there was an unused cement patio outside the sliding doors, near the damaged roof, a perfect spot upon which to build a screened porch. Taking advantage of contractors in the house anyways, she set to work designing the porch of her dreams. It had to be large enough to accommodate a good-sized crowd, but still be cozy. It would have a view of my dad’s shady, manicured yard, but the entrance would be from the family room, with no door to the backyard from the porch. That way, the adults could observe the grandchildren, but it would be difficult for the kids to enter from the yard and get in our way (free range parenting at its finest). There would be no zooming through her quiet refuge. And there would be no screen door to slam, a sound that she could not bear. (For a woman who lived her life in the center of constant chaos, that sound simply unglued her).

She got her porch right around Mother’s Day that year and it quickly became a popular space for seasonal visiting. Often, I would find my mom out there when I would come home from school. She would be on a glider with the late afternoon sunshine streaming in from the side, a baby grandchild blissfully tucked in between her pillowy arms and generous bosom. They would rock back and forth, like a middle-aged Madonna with child. And nary a bug was around to disrupt her reverie. I would drop my backpack, grab some Fig Newton cookies, and pour a cup of tea to join her. Finally, she had her happy place.

Thinking of my mom and her porch now, I see that it has stopped raining outside and the sun is shining on the autumn leaves, giving them a fresh radiance. My mom would love this porch, for its views of the valley, and horses (she adored the strength and grace of horses). It is elevated, right next to an enormous poplar tree, making it feel like a tree house or a sky box. I think of her every time I set myself up in my corner out here, my happy place. 

Porch days are dwindling, in spite of blankets, heating pads, and hot coffee. But I will eke out as much time as I can, as I seek the sanctuary out here, removing myself from the news feeds and political mayhem beyond these screens. In this time of division, it is nice to sit in a place of perfect compromise: it is not all of anything, all inside or all outside. And yet, it pleases all.

The Game of Golf

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There is a home movie of me. It is 1968. I am about four years old at the driving range at Oglebay Park in Wheeling, West Virginia. My brothers are there, too, in their goldenrod-colored shorts and tube socks. I am thrashing away at a golf ball, rivulets of sweat running down my bright, apple-red face. My dad, tall, lanky, just starting to develop the paunch that gave him his signature water tower silhouette he was famous for later in life, is maybe 49 or 50 and he is giving me pointers. The air is thick with humidity and, although the 8-millimeter movie has no sound, I can just hear the cicadas singing in the valleys below. Looking at my dad on film I wonder ... when did he take up golf? And why? Surely, he didn’t get started until after World War II. He was the only son of working-class Irish immigrants. How did he find his way to this ridiculous sport?

Jack was a rather serious man, but never took golf too seriously. A member of the Greatest Generation who lived through The Great Depression, World War II, and raising a big family through the Sixties, he realized that golf is a game, not worth getting one’s shorts in a bunch. Perhaps he found that golf is a subtle way of saying, “Life is not all wide fairways and easy greens, my friends.”

Over the years, Jack introduced all nine of his children and even my mother to golf. He never joined a golf club or a league, but each summer would lug the tribe of us down to the hot hollers of West Virginia to golf. He may have found golf was a way to “peek under the hood” of each of us to see what we were all about? He must have known that a day spent golfing with someone gives you a window into someone’s true nature. Is he honest? How patient is he with himself and others? How is her humor? How does she handle the pressure and embarrassment of people watching you give it your all and only move the bloody ball a few feet forward ... if at all? How deep is her vocabulary of swear words (mine is an abyss)?

My dad would take me golfing with him every now and then, complimenting me on my “natural swing.” (It turns out, my swing is a happy accident, benefitting from my spinal curve from scoliosis, but it was dear that he only saw the swing). He was not a verbose man, not one to have deep talks or shower one with praise. But while golfing, the whole afternoon would be filled with gentle encouragements: “That’s the right idea,” “Nice and easy, like sweeping the porch,” “Eyes on the ball, head down,” “Bend those knees, like you’re sitting on a bar stool,” (could there be a more Irish coaching tip?) ... and the inevitable, “That’s enough, pick up and let’s go to the next hole” and “Don’t keep track of your score, it will break your spirit.”

I don’t think Jack even knew his handicap (nor I mine because the whole process feels like an SAT math problem). He consistently golfed 100, which is respectable. Plain old crappy golf takes a long time and to become a good golfer with a low handicap takes a lot of practice = a very, very long time. Golf was low on Jack’s priority list, way, way behind his Big Three: Faith, Family, Work. (I am often suspect of someone with a low handicap, honestly. I mean ... Come on, aren’t you needed somewhere more important than the fairway seven days a week, sir?)

Several years ago, in an effort to better my own golf game, I was convinced to join a women’s league. With my dad’s compliments from childhood ringing in my ears, I went into this league experience feeling rather confident, wearing my snazzy new golf skort and sparkling fresh shoes. “Oh, yes, I’ve been golfing my whole life,” I told the ladies. But what I didn’t realize is that when you’re playing with serious golfers, those who actually keep score – like really keep score (whiffs, flubs and all) – well, my golf score climbed up there. It turns out I am not a good golfer at all.

During one round early on, I was paired with a crabby old bitty of a woman who seemed hell bent on, I don’t know, making me cry? The entire round, she reprimanded me for chatting, for casting my shadow in her lie, (so I guess shadow puppets are a no-no, too?), for taking too long to find my godforsaken ball – so much so that she made me tee it off again. Sure, those are the “actual rules,” but clearly, she was not worried about “breaking my spirit.” She scowled and trudged through her round as if this “game” was a crappy job and I was the new hire, ripe for hazing. The entire round I had that woman on my shoulder like a vulture, sneering at me. The more I worried about her, about my shitty whiffs and flubs, the worse I got. That death march continued for an eternity with me hacking and whacking away, like an old timey prisoner breaking stones, until my arms finally gave out. Yes, that mean ole fuddy duddy did make me cry. She probably went home to her hairless cat, feeling satisfied that she broke another golfer wannabe.

And so, since then, I’ve retreated to golfing mostly with family and a few close friends. When the stakes are low, golfing makes me feel like I’m with my dad, now that he’s gone nearly twenty-five years. It makes me appreciate nature, being outside, just like he did. I love the soft glimmer of the grass in the early morning as I M-F my drive, sending it soaring into another hole’s fairway, n’er to be seen again. I love the long, quiet shadows of late afternoon golf as a hush falls over the green while I putt ... and putt ... and putt again, urging the ball into the hole with a limbo-like dance that only sometimes works. I enjoy taking a close look at the trees surrounding the fairway ... because I spend a lot of time in their dappled shade, bouncing my ball off their strong, stoic trunks or trying to chip my way back to where I’m supposed to be.

I will occasionally golf with my husband, who came to the game only about twenty years ago and now is Sir Golf A Lot. For someone who eschews “the rules” in life in general, he is a strict rule follower in golf, which is a buzz kill, honestly. He does not appreciate my antics on the golf course. No fart noises on the backswing? What’s fun about that?

As I write this, I am unpacking from that annual family vacation where, by some clerical error, I won the annual Women’s Open. I played rounds with my daughters, my sister, my cousin and even a couple of my brothers, which was a treat. When they were adolescents, my brothers were golf hot heads, taking each swing seriously, easily frustrated to the point of throwing clubs into the woods or cracking them over a knee. Watching them swing away ... or hunt and peck for those balls sliced into the “love grass,” they are much more mellow. They have my dad’s same balding pate, sweating in the insufferable West Virginia heat. I think how happy he would be that we are all continuing this tradition of playing golf together. Much like his tradition/torture of gathering us all to do yard work together – an equally time-intensive endeavor, filled with sweat, tears and swearing – this tradition is not really about the golf at all. It’s about just spending a few hours together, taking Jack’s lessons from golf forward into life: keep a sense of humor, enjoy the scenery, don’t keep score, and, when the going gets too rough, pick up and move on.  I mean, it is a game, isn’t it? It’s better than changing a poopy diaper, paying bills, snaking a drain or going to war, for chrissakes. It’s a game. A long, difficult, embarrassing, humbling, enlightening, beautiful, ridiculous game. But with the right people … worth it.

Gifts at the Sea

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I am sitting seaside, people watching, hiding in the shade down at the water’s edge. I am nearing the end of a very long stay at the beach. It’s been an on-again-off-again lonely time. My husband, The Trip Planner, set us up to be “snow birds” this year, so we took the long drive from Ohio to Florida, have taken some side trips here and there, but for the most part have fallen into a quiet rhythm in south Florida. About a month in, though, I was getting antsy. I almost jumped on a plane to go home for a bit. It felt too long away from family, from friends. Too long away from my sweet dog. I have felt guilty being here. And too young to be a “snow bird.” But then it occurred to me, maybe I should just embrace this gift ...  as a retreat of sorts. From the events of the past few years. From Cleveland winter, of course. From “real life.” 

As I watch the pretty young things amble by, I realize that this year marks my 40th reunion year from high school. I am thinking now of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and her book, Gift from the Sea. It was given to me by my friend and I used quotes from it for a speech I was chosen to give at my high school graduation. Thinking about Mrs. Lindbergh now, I chuckle. At the time, I thought she was an old lady, writing about her life in the past tense, but I’ve since found out that she was only 49 years old, in the midst of raising five children. That’s younger than am I now. Re-reading her little book again, I appreciate her words, written so beautifully about life, marriage, raising a family, being a woman in the “modern age” of the 1950s. 

Lindbergh wrote then about the challenges of women in the 20th Century, using philosopher and psychologist, William James’ description “Zerrissenheit” – or "torn-to-pieces-hood.” To combat “being shattered into a thousand pieces,” by trying to be everything to everyone, she writes that women must “consciously encourage those pursuits which oppose the centrifugal forces of today. Quiet time alone, contemplation, prayer, music, a centering line of thought or reading, of study or work.” (This was in 1955, mind you. After a massive World War. After she had had a child abducted and murdered. Her husband was a famous aviator, she was an aviator herself, as well as a poet and writer.) When I think of myself quoting Mrs. Lindbergh as a 17-year-old in 1982, I am embarrassed at how sage I thought I was. Here I am, all these years later, finding her words so relevant in the 21st Century. 

I came upon that graduation speech recently while packing to move. Holding it in my hands, all wrinkled and faded, I remember typing it out on my mother’s massive old typewriter at our huge, round Formica kitchen table. I quoted the book, “I am packing to leave my island. What have I for my efforts, for my ruminations on the beach? What answers or solutions have I found for my life? I have a few shells in my pockets, a few clues, only a few.” I used Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s words as a metaphor for graduation. I wrote, 

“It is time to launch from our island. The shells we’ve collected in our pockets are varied: sharp, spiny, smooth, speckled. If we put any of them to our ears, familiar sounds would surely echo. The home room gossip, the exhausted, slap happy giggles of volleyball practice, the much-too-loud music of dances, the silence backstage before that one big line.” 

Re-reading my words, saying them out loud, I actually still like them. 

Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote Gift from the Sea while on a retreat on Captiva Island, a sheller’s paradise on Florida’s west coast, before south Florida became chock-a-block full of people and cars. It must have been heavenly back then. Lindbergh spent her time combing the beaches every morning for treasures and inspiration. The seashore I am on is nothing like that. It is a busy, cosmopolitan beach with high rises on the roiling, ever-changing Atlantic east coast of Florida. This is not a shell beach. It is constantly having to be reconstituted with sand that is forever being pulled out by the tides. I am not collecting shells, but treasures are to be found here, as well. 

Wonder: The ocean is a wondrous place, full of beauty, and mystery. From our seaside perch, I have seen schools of fish, manta rays, sting rays, manatees, and sharks. It is fun to watch people experience the ocean – either once again, or for the first time. When my youngest daughter first saw the ocean at nine months old, she stared out at it and just muttered, “Big water.” Some first timers are timid, tip-toeing into the water, trying to levitate over it even as they move into it, arms rising up, up, up as they tepidly submerse by inches. Others, like my husband, the Merman, go all in immediately, plunging under the waves to get the shock over with. Those new to the ocean can get overwhelmed by its mystery. “Eek! Something touched me!” I hear every now and then. “What was that?!” For those of us who scuba dive, we know there are plenty of things under the surface. Generally, they are not interested in clumsy, fleshy humans splashing in the shallows. But yes, fish live in the ocean.

Perspective: Like looking up into the night sky as a kid, looking out over the ocean gives me perspective on life – especially first thing in the morning or in the quiet, long shadows of late afternoon, when all the sun worshipers have gone. It is a cliché, but my problems, troubles, worries all seem smaller, impermanent, ephemeral next to the grandeur of the mighty Atlantic. I imagine all that she’s seen over her millions of years and realize that no matter what my own issue or worry, like the tide, “this too shall pass.” Glaciers, hurricanes, still water, rip tides ... nothing lasts forever. It all keeps moving. Forever.

Joy: There is a vast current of humanity flowing through this area, like a jet stream: Cuban, South American, Puerto Rican, Orthodox Jews, Hasidic Jews, Quebecois … me. No matter their age, race, religion, self- identification, I have seen that humans who come to the beach find joy here, either in the time together, the solace of a good book and a quiet lounge chair, or just laying, exposed to the sun, drinking in all that Vitamin D. When my oldest daughter first saw the ocean at about nine months old, I literally had to restrain her from going all in, head first. She was thrilled by it. As I walk down the beach now, I see children squealing as the waves chase them, like sandpipers, back and forth, the water licking their heels. Others dig away at the sand, their chubby little hands fervently working to form it into a mound, a castle, a moat, thrilling at their own ingenuity. “I have discovered this thing! Sand castles!” 

Calm: It’s hard to be agitated at the beach. I think it’s the negative ions wafting from the water, soothing humans’ spirits. I see a grandmother walking quietly, holding hands with her granddaughter, both taking in the calm. I remember doing the same thing with my middle daughter while I was pregnant with my youngest. I was so nervous about this little person who was no longer going to be the baby. “Is she ready for this?”I thought. “Am I?” I remember the water shush, shush, shushing on the sand that day, as it is now, sounding like Mother Earth quieting an agitated baby. “Shhhh ... There there, now. All is well.”

Butt Cheeks: So many butt cheeks. My seaside research shows that, while the string bikini thong bathing suits are fading in popularity, the beach fashion de jour is now the “cheeky” bikini bottom. The tiny V on the butt reveals, in a perfect body, firm little butt cheeks that one could bounce a quarter off. Young and older gals alike parade the beach in the “cheekies.” I marvel at the bravery or don’t-give-a-crap mentality of some older gals. There they are, letting it literally all hang out. My 17-year-old self might snigger at those fleshy, jiggly bodies. But now, I tip my large sun hat to them. “Good on ya, madam,” I say to myself. “Gotta love that body positivity.”

Boobies: They are birds. My husband, the Bird Man, pointed these birds out to me that look like compact seagulls, but are divers and swimmers. It is interesting to watch them search for, find and capture their prey. Beautiful, efficient, stealthy. He’s clearly fascinated, too. Every afternoon he grabs his sunglasses, large brimmed hat, and cooler and heads out to the beach, mumbling, “Gotta keep an eye on those boobies.”

I’m sure he is talking about the birds ... 

Right?

Moving On

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Time to fly

Several weeks ago, I was enjoying one more swim at summer’s end in our farm pool. The air had started to hold the crisp scent of autumn and as I swam back and forth, I kept my eyes on a bluebird family fervently fussing with their nest. Mrs. Bluebird was feeding a late summer brood of hatchlings. “Impressive,” I thought. “You’re heading south soon and here you are squeezing in one more nest of offspring.” It got me thinking of how effortlessly birds up and move, north to south and back again, year in, year out. “This bluebird family better hurry up,” I thought. “Trees are starting to turn color. Winter is coming ...” 

I too have a deadline looming on my calendar ... and it’s creeping closer. I am in the midst of a move out of my home of 24 years, a house in the middle of an enchanted neighborhood. The home where I raised my family. The home I made my own, little by little, until it had my fingerprints all over every room, metaphorically and literally. A home with a lifetime of memories, blessings, good times, tough times. It is not a tragic move, not one of necessity or loss, though we are moving into the house of my husband’s parents who both passed away over the past two years. It is a move of choice, of opportunity, of thinking forward, moving into a home in which we can “age in place.” We are moving from one beautiful home to another beautiful home. Around the corner, no less. We are blessed.

But I hate moving. The emotion, the upheaval, the chaos ... I look at my bird friends and wonder, “Do you have stacks of boxes, packing tape and sharpies in there? Do you have TO DO lists on Post Its? Are you purging before your big move? Or are you just going to, you know, wing it?” 

I am having a hard time with the purging because I am a sentimental sot. My writing table faces a painting of my childhood home at 21500 Erie Road. Gazing at it that painting every morning, I smell my dad’s Dial soap aroma, hear my mom’s calloused feet shuffling on the kitchen linoleum floors, taste the burnt chicken from backyard grill, smell the mineral scent of water from the garden hose. I still dream of that house.

The home we are leaving is beautiful, built with love and care by its original owners. It is house that is reportedly a replica of an historic home in Maine. Yes, her triple track windows are inefficient and troublesome. And her basement ceiling is low and weird. And her master bedroom and bathroom are smallish and have lousy storage. But her woodwork and her bones ... they sing when you walk in her doors. A quiet, lovely song. Hello, come on in. Walking through my home of 24 years ... my beautiful, imperfect home, one notices its lovely details, its solid sense of roots, of permanence. The new owner will change a lot, I’m sure, as I did. Will they blow out the porch to make a great room? Will they change the wood floor stain to a darker one, paint those kitchen cabinets, as I was going to? Will they gut the basement rec room? Will they love and appreciate this home as much as we did? Yes, they will. They are anxious to get in and start their lives.

But I don’t have time for musings. Purge. Pack. Move. Unpack. Purge some more. Put away ... the process is daunting. Do I hang onto those 80’s tapes? DVD’s? CD’s? VHS? “Screw it,” I think. I throw them all into a box to move them and decide later. I continue packing, organizing boxes, setting things aside for my daughters, for giveaways, for garbage. Labeling things so they have a place to land on the other side of this chaos. 

What will my girls remember from our house? The creaky step halfway up the stairs? Arguments at dinnertime? Tiptoeing down the stairs on Christmas morning? Stomping up the stairs and slamming doors? That wonky brick step outside the mudroom that keeps coming loose? The many dinner parties with family and friends? Hopefully they will remember music, laughter, support, love. 

Change is hard.

Moving on ... Our new home is a home of beauty, calm, comfort and legacy. I am saying goodbye to the past, but am also stepping into the past, into a different house full of memories. My husband’s parents were in that house for thirty years. Emptying out my in-law’s house, I am struck by the triviality of the stuff we all accumulate through a life. They had lovely things -- the figurines, the furniture, the candlesticks, etc. But when a life is all over, it’s all just left for someone to go through, pass around, give away. The things we carry ... evidence of a life lived. I am floating from my own memories to my husband’s memories, through my in-law’s memories. Looking forward and backward at the same time is giving me emotional whiplash. I keep humming to myself Joni Mitchell, “We go round and round and round in the circle game.” I lay down on the floor of the foyer and cry with gratitude, loss, exhaustion and back pain. I am thankful for the history in the new/old house, I hear my father-in-law’s chuckle as I hold his back scratcher, my mother-in-law’s nervous humming while emptying out her kitchen drawers. I am remembering our Christmases, Independence Days, birthdays, a wedding in the yard. I am thankful for the future we will build there. The house will be different, yes, but as my oldest daughter reminded me, “we will still be us.” Of course we will.

They say one should move every six years or so just to force oneself to get rid of stuff. I have friends who have moved several times. Some who have moved from city to city so often they are unfazed, they are pros at this. The thought of that much moving pains me. As I am in the midst of that process, I am trying to find the minimalist deep inside of me ... she’s here somewhere, under a pile of my old tap shoes and Manta Reef t-shirt from 1992. I am getting rid of kids’ art projects from 20 years ago, books about how to raise children not to be sociopaths, cookbooks never opened but purchased for their culinary porn photos. I grab the cargo pants that I delay giving away because they may come back in style and anyways, they do make my butt look good. But it is all so overwhelming. Family photos, memorabilia from travels ... I vow to never purchase anything ever again.  

I pack away my mom’s spatula with the burn mark on the handle, the china set from our wedding (all fourteen place settings). The teacups from a grandmother I never knew. My mom’s cheap floral china coffee cup and saucer and think, “What will my own daughters do with our lifetime of stuff? Give it away to strangers to live a new life? Give it to their own children? What will be the thing they hold onto from our life together?” One never knows ... it’s usually the little inconsequential stuff that holds the most meaning, which is why I lovingly pack my mom’s mangled salt shaker that fell down the disposal during the flurry of a post dinner cleanup sometime in the 1970’s ... more than once. It reminds me of the comforting chaos of her kitchen.

I stop at the door of my old house, running my hands over the hashmarks on the doorway marking everyone’s growth milestones, and think of the past purge/pack marathon. We made the deadline, but it wasn’t pretty. Near the end, I just started throwing crap – sentimental and otherwise – into moving boxes. More and more boxes were labeled “Mary’s Misc. Stuff”. Who the hell knows what I will unpack from those boxes? It will be a ridiculous surprise of familiar flotsam. The pink high top Chuck Taylor sneakers from the bar basketball team I was on in the late ‘80’s or the billowy scarf collection that makes it seem like I am secretly a gypsy or a Stevie Nicks impersonator. It’s all so ridiculous.

Closing the door behind me, I drive around sobbing, thinking, remembering. It is a loss. It is a gain. I find myself driving past my childhood home, thinking to myself, “Who would I be if I had grown up somewhere else? Who would my own family be had we lived in a different house, a different neighborhood for the past 24 years? Who will I be in this new house?” I snap out of my melancholy and think of All. Those. Boxes ... “Who would I be without these trappings, all this stuff I just packed up?” These things are the pebbles I put in my pockets as I’ve made my way through life. I don’t want to attach myself to them too much, but yes, but they do hold meaning and memories. That mangled salt shaker is a family jewel to me. But I doubt any of my daughters will want it. 

After we moved out, our new house wasn’t ready so we took refuge back at the farm for a few weeks. I checked in on my bluebird family and found they had moved on. I took down their birdhouse and cleaned it out ... nothing was left but twigs and feathery fluff. 

I hope they’re happy in their new place. I know I will be. 

I gaze at the cleared-out birdhouse in my hand and think, “I need to buy a couple of these for the new house.”

And so, it begins ...

Trees

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They say only an optimist plants a tree.

Four years ago, my husband, Johnny Appleseed, got a wild hair and decided to plant not one, but 150 fruit trees at our farm. Or rather, he hired a nice Mennonite family to plant them. We knew exactly nothing about fruit trees, but there they stand, dotting a hillside in mid-Ohio. We planted 25 peach trees, 25 cherry trees and 10 each of 10 varieties of apples. Two peach trees made it through the first winter, six cherry trees. But so far, all of those apple trees are hanging in there. 

 For the past four years, I occasionally drive our four-wheeler by the orchard and give all the trees a pep talk: “You’re doing great! Keep up the good work!” It must be working, because this past month, for the first time in four years, we have apples. They’re not pretty, but there they are, hanging like imperfect jewels from the leafy branches. Honestly, it’s thrilling to behold. I’ll have to keep up the pep talks. And start looking up apple recipes.

While I am learning about fruit trees, I have always admired trees in general. After all, I am from Northeast Ohio, known as The Forest City for all the trees in this area. Every morning as I journal, I observe the trees out my window or on my porch, swaying, shimmering, tickling the air with their leaves. On the farm, our porch juts out right next to an enormous poplar tree, giving the room the feel of a treehouse. One of my favorite sounds in the world is the sound of a breeze through the leaves of that tree.

My real home is in a little town, about 20 minutes west of Cleveland, that is home to thousands of gigantic oak trees, one of which stands proudly in my back yard. This tree is probably 300 years old. I gaze up at her, towering above all the other trees around us and wonder what she has lived through. I imagine her as she grew up in a thick forest, full of native American tribes running past her, hunting and fishing on the southern shores of Lake Erie. She saw the white Europeans move in, pushing the natives out, claiming the land as their own. She saw species of animals that are now extinct or no longer thrive in this area: bears, wolves, large cats. She has seen the American Revolution and the Civil War pass by her branches and as she grew taller, and eventually shaded generations of families under her branches. 

As she pushed her roots down, down, down into the clay earth and stretched herself up, up, up to the sky, eagles soared above her canopy. They vanished from this area for a while, the water being tainted with toxic DDT, but then returned when that practice stopped and now she sees them again, soaring, gliding up and down the great Lake Erie shoreline. 

She saw farmers move in, divide up the land beneath her and plant orchards around her base. Our neighborhood used to be an orchard. She stood tall, like a sentry, peaking over the trees around her to catch a glimpse of the mighty lake to the north, the sun rising over it every morning to the east, setting over it to the west in the summer. To the south, she could see the rolling hills of forested land, pushed in front of the glaciers before they receded and left the Great Lakes in their wake. 

Our oak saw the city folk march westward, out of the dense, dirty city core during the Industrial Revolution, escaping to the fresh, breezy shoreline to relax, spread out, dip their toes in the water. The people built summer get-away cottages along the lakeshore and eventually permanent homes beneath her boughs. White colonial style homes, brimming with post World War II families, spread out around her with kickballs, firefly hunts and backyard grilling smoke wisping up into her ever-expanding limbs. 

If I were to be a tree, what would I be?

If I were to be a tree, what would I be?

I remember the time when an Amish family came to build a shed in our back yard and, upon finishing, ended up standing around our tree, arms akimbo, craning their necks upward to admire her now expansive 200-foot height. Straight, true, magnificent. They even measured her base, some 30 feet around. The father removed his hat, brushed the dirt off it and shook his head, “That’s a mighty fine tree you’ve got there. If she ever gets sick, I would sell your house, because it’s going to be a fortune to take her down.”

If I were to be a tree, what would I be? While I adore our massive oak, I gotta say, those brown leaves in the autumn are drab, unimpressive. I’d rather be a radiant maple with bright red leaves, pulsing with sexy, tasty syrup. Or perhaps a dramatic weeping willow with my hair flung over my eyes like a gothic princess. Or maybe an aspen, with shimmering, dancing leaves. Back on the farm, walking amongst all those apple trees, I remember the book The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein – and realize that, as a mother, I’m an apple tree. “Come Boy, come climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and be happy.” Not sexy or dramatic, but it fits.

I look across the orchard, at the bejeweled trees. It’s odd to think about someone, maybe a grandchild, a great grandchild or a complete future stranger, looking out over these trees in fifty years, wondering, “Who planted these trees here? Why? What was their life like way back then ... wasn’t that during the pandemic of 2020?” Perhaps then one will turn to the other and say, “You know, they say only an optimist plants a tree.”

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Kitchen Gadgets

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One of my favorite discoveries in the region our farm property is an Amish Country Store named Lehmans Market. “Country Store” belies the enormity of this place. It is more like an Amish Mall of America. This sprawling entity includes everything a good Amish household might need. The hardware section is a walk back through time with potbellied stoves, axes for cutting firewood, and all manner of wrenches, hammers and manly, old-timey devices. The laundry supplies section is filled with drying racks, wringers, washboards and clothes pins. There are provisions for candle making, soap making, “Simple Life” stuff you would need if you didn’t have, modern day distractions like television, internet or electricity … things any End Times home would need.

The book section is an odd collection of titles like “What’s it like to be Amish,” “There’s Room on the Porch Swing,” “Almost Amish” and the intriguing “Mennonite Men Can Cook Too.” Which brings me to the kitchen section: row upon row of accoutrement, large and small. Materials for making, storing, carrying, serving one’s own bread, pasta, jam, cakes, pies, soups, stews, stocks, lemonade, apple cider … stuff that would make Julia Childs drool. It is this department that I just had to bring my best friend to see.

My friend, we’ll call her Kathy, is a wonderful cook and she loves kitchen paraphernalia. She putters effortlessly around her kitchen, using her special gadgets, meant for anything imaginable. Juicing a small lemon? Got the gadget. A large lemon? Got a different gadget. A unique and clever stirring thingy, a special contraption for turning this or that, frying whatever. She’s got it. Sear it, bake it, freeze it, shake it, it’s covered. Observing her in her kitchen, she’s forever picking every last bit of beef off the bone so she can make it into a soup or stew later. She is constantly cooking, storing, freezing food, ready to put on a gorgeous buffet at a moment’s notice. Once, when she hosted my sisters and me for a weekend at her lake home, she disappeared for a few moments and was chatting with us from the other room. We barely knew she was gone before she somehow magically returned with freshly made ice cream (she’s got a gadget for that!) and an apple pie that made us weep it was so good. 

She comes by it naturally. Kathy’s mother is a Hungarian immigrant. She and her sister were raised by their Hungarian grandmother and great aunts, and all the recipes and traditions that came with them. I grew up across the street from Kathy and going into her house as a child was a cultural adventure. The house was subdued, bathed in a late 60’s glow of burnt oranges, pinks and goldenrod yellows. The Hungarian aunties were always in the kitchen, stirring bubbling pots on the stove, steam rising, enveloping their babushkas in mystery. There were smells there that that I never found in my own mother’s kitchen: paprika, roasted peppers, goulash, stews, soups, noodles slathered in something amazing and foreign (probably just butter, but it smelled different there). Their Hungarian chatter, reprimanding us as we wandered through the room with Barbies in tow, was at once exotic and familiar. 

As a teenager, Kathy enlisted her aunties’ help to tackle the painstaking task of making a Hungarian Dobos Torte, a multi-layered, complicated Hungarian delicacy that took her probably two days to make. I remember thinking, “why would you do that when you could just crack open a perfectly good Sarah Lee pound cake and have at it?” But she persevered, creating a lovely, delicate pastry that would make any bakery envious. Tragically, it ended up in a heap, when, while it was setting up in the basement, a load of laundry came down the shoot and blew it to smithereens. 

As I remember Kathy’s kitchen, I hear Hungarian chatter and the aunties’ silhouettes morph into my friend at present day, pecking through the kitchen aisle at Lehman’s, looking for just the right spatula – there are maybe twenty varieties. I chuckle to myself, looking at her, knowing her culinary tradition and comparing it to my own meat and potatoes upbringing. 

My mother’s kitchen door was always open, ready to feed whomever walked happened through. It wasn’t fussy food -- no desserts that took half a week to prepare -- but it was the epitome of comfort food. That kitchen was chaotic and improvisational. My mother liked to cook … enough. It was a necessary part of the job description. Everything was made in large quantities. There was usually an overcooked chicken grilled out in the nice weather, eye of the round and a mountain of mashed potatoes on Sundays. The smoke alarm would go off when the oven door was opened to reveal charred dinner rolls. I was routinely enlisted to scrape the blackened bottoms off the dinner rolls. I don’t remember salad showing up in that kitchen until the mid-80s. My friend Kathy grew up in my mom’s kitchen, probably as much as she was in her own. She spent many, many hours with me in that kitchen, peeling potatoes, setting the table, eating, clearing the table, doing the dishes, sweeping the floor, feeding a baby or two at my mother’s expansive kitchen table.

Now, as adults, Kathy and I are both fans of food, cooking, fiddling around in the kitchen, and entertaining. I think we each carry with us our separate and combined kitchen histories. My mother would often say, in reference to family gatherings, “it’s not about the food.” For her, it was about being together, sharing stories, love, laughter. If the roast was burnt, well, that’s fodder for another story. For Kathy’s people, it was all about the food, old world traditions, recipes, history and bringing people together to experience them. Put all those ingredients in a pot, stir it together with time ... and here’s what you get: two middle-aged women pecking through an Amish kitchen aisle, sharing a friendship of some 53 years, getting ready to prepare and sit down to dinner together to share stories, love, laughter, old world traditions, recipes, good food. And maybe some of that homemade ice cream, because there’s a gadget for that.

Autumn Resolutions

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There’s a chill in the air and a list coming on!

There’s a chill in the air and a list coming on!

Sitting on my back porch, there is that familiar chill just barely in the air. Fall is coming, and while it signals an ending – leaves will fall and soon thereafter, so will snow -- it always feels like a new start. A do over. A time to begin again with clean, empty notebooks and new ideas. It’s like January, but with better weather. 

Passing earnest parents and eager children with shiny new backpacks at bus stops all over town, I feel the need to make lists, set goals, buy new desk supplies for myself and label them all with Sharpie pens. I instinctively look at the calendar and mark dates for the new school year, even though my “students” are now 21 and 24 years old. What will I do when they are both out of school next year? Maybe I’ll just make note of the bulk garbage pickup days for the coming year.

A few weeks ago, I brought my last child to college; it was the end of an era for that ritual of packing up the car, heading far, far away, (each of my kids chose colleges out of state), nesting her up, ordering pizza and eating it on the floor or the bed or, in this last case, the pretty decent Walmart dining room table. We spend a couple of days talking about goals for the year, classes chosen, how to roast a chicken and turn it into 3 meals for the week, and figure out when will she come home next. Releasing, letting go. Again. “Love you forever … bye! Make good choices! Don’t shame the family!”

Down on the farm, the fall ritual is very much the same. Yearling horses which were weaned last fall have spent the past twelve months frolicking, living, running, fighting and playing in single-sex fenced-in paddocks with simple “run-in barns” available for them to retreat from the sun or the cold and eat some hay, boys on one side, girls on the other, like Catholic high schools. Now, after learning the ropes of living without their mothers, these young adults are brought inside the big barns for the first time. Unlike the run-in barns, these barns have individual stalls with doors, something that none of these youngins are used to. Walking into the barn a few weeks ago, the stalls were teeming with noisy young horses, unsettled with excitement, fear, agitation and bewilderment. These young fillies and colts went from nursing from their mothers last summer to living together in a wild herd over the past year. Now they are getting ready to go to the big yearling horse sales and they have to learn their manners, learn how to be led, wear a halter, learn how to be alone in a stall, to eat out of a feed bowl, and act civilized. Once they are sold to new owners, most will then be taught how to be race horses, trotters. It’s like horses going to college, without the pizza.

Another ritual of my autumn is my annual Slugfest reunion with my college pals. When it began, some thirty-three years ago, it was a summer affair where we sat on the dock lakeside in upper Minnesota, drank cheap beer and talked and laughed all weekend long. Once we started having children, our schedules became full of swim meets, little league games and family vacations and so our reunions moved to the autumn. Somewhere along the line, at the end of the weekend, we began to make Slug resolutions, or as we like to say, “un-goal goals.” Being good friends and not wanting to burden each other with guilt or pressure, we soft peddled our expectations.  Each year, any one of us will say, “By this time next year, if I feel like it, I will entertain the idea of possibly thinking about accomplishing _____ … maybe.” These un-goal goals range from lofty (getting an MBA, moving to a new city, changing jobs, getting yoga certified or training for a marathon) to the mundane (cleaning out the basement, organizing family photos, learning how to play the ukulele, or writing a blog). 

Each autumn the yearling horses come into the barn and learn their manners.

Each autumn the yearling horses come into the barn and learn their manners.

 I’ve got a long list of things that I haven’t gotten around to accomplishing yet, that roll over from one year to the next: learn conversational German and Italian, organize my photos (that’s thirty years’ running now), clean out my basement (just about as long), lose ten pounds.  And my bar keeps getting lower; getting a good night’s sleep at least once a week and not suffering fools for one second are at the top of this year’s list. But also write more, travel more, seize every mother grabbing day. And on the Zen side: do more yoga, meditate more, be present because Life changes quickly. I am throwing a new one on the heap that feels a little lofty: think about thinking about possibly learning about podcasting. We’ll see …

By the time I finish my Slugfest reunion, I will come home rested, rejuvenated and inspired … just in time for Halloween, then it’s November, Thanksgiving, Christmas and yes, the new year. Perhaps I will have checked off a few of my “to do’s” by then? 

I can tell you right now, probably not. 

That’s what New Year’s Resolutions are for.

Going After After-Prom

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I was out walking my dog the other day and came upon a neighbor maniacally mowing his grass, hurriedly power walking back and forth across his front yard. “Hey, how’s it going?” I asked, rather worried about his mental sanity. “Ok,” he sighed. “I just got in from chaperoning my daughter’s After-Prom party. I’msohoppeduponcoffee … I can’t sleep.” Ah, so that explained his fervent mowing.

My mom sewed a lace jacket to go over my Kiana dress, so as not to be too fleshy.

My mom sewed a lace jacket to go over my Kiana dress, so as not to be too fleshy.

“What the hell happened to Prom, by the way?” he asked, all dazed and disheveled. “I was dressed up as a clown last night. A clown, for chrissakes. This After-Prom party was more stage-managed than the Oscars. All to keep these kids from drinking. And you know what they’re all doing today? Drinking. In a cabin somewhere … I don’t know why we all don’t just rent them a hotel room, fill the bathtub up with cans of 3.2 beer and let them have at it. You know, like we all did.” 

Honestly, he’s right. In the past, I don’t know, 25 years or so, proms have become state affairs. They feel like weddings, complete with a group honeymoon. I hate to sound like an old geezer with the “back in my day” comments … but back in my day, you found some poor slob with a pulse to go to prom with you, bought or borrowed a good Kiana dress, had your mom help you with your hair so you looked kinda fancy, shot some awkward photos in your front yard, and then went to the damned prom. No huge group photos with an incredible, landscaped background. No dresses that cost more than a mortgage payment. No salon visits for updo’s and mani-pedi and spray tans. Yes, we grabbed some crappy beer to drink. But mind you, most of us were of legal drinking age (18 at the time) and the rest of us were weeks away. And the beer was lower in alcohol, for 18 to 21-year olds. So, we got a weak little buzz and went to a party room way out in the suburbs, ate some average food and had some fun. Our parents were barely involved. Honestly, I think my dad lifted his eyes for a minute from reading the Wall Street Journal to say, “Oh, um, bye, sweetheart! Have fun! And your curfew is still 11 o’clock, by the way.”

No awkwardness here.

No awkwardness here.

The After-Prom planning starts at the beginning of Senior year. A good friend of mine was so excited when she learned her daughter was voted President of Senior Class … until she realized that meant that she and her husband were now in charge of After-Prom. There are decorations committees, elaborate staged productions, huge donations of products, prizes, and on and on and on. I don’t mean to be a kill joy, but I’ve got news for you. I don’t really think these kids remember it all that much. I was on an After-Prom committee that painstakingly deliberated over which type of fleece blanket to put in the goody bag each kid got to take home at the end of the night. You know where that blanket is now? In the dog’s crate, full of chew holes. She didn’t want to take it to college. That kind of summarizes it all in a nutshell. It’s all. Too. Much.

And what is with the falderal involved with asking a girl or guy to prom? Promposals? Goodness gracious, what pressure! It’s no longer enough to muster up the courage to ask … you have to orchestrate it, stage it, choreograph it, for the love of God. As if our high schoolers aren’t under enough pressure with all the bloody AP courses and expectations to be hyper-involved in a hundred different extra curriculars, creating tech start-ups by their junior year and being on some godforsaken fast track to a high voltage career by the time they graduate eighth grade … now they need to devise some extraordinary performance art prom date request? Ok, some are sweet. My daughter’s high school friend was on our flight home from Florida when he talked the flight attendant into making an announcement over the speaker to ask her to prom. The whole plane applauded. It was cute, I’ve got to say. And props to him for calling an audible on the spot. But I’ve heard some doozies that are more elaborate than an actual engagement proposal, involving balloons, or a box of pastries with “I DONUT want to go to Prom with anyone but you.” My own engagement was fine, but by no means as orchestrated as a Promposal. My husband brought me in his boat out on Lake Erie in a three to five-foot swells, bent a knee and whipped out the ring. Getting more and more nauseous, I was like, “Ok, yeah, sure. Let’s go in now. I’m gonna hurl.” When we showed up at my parents’ house to announce our engagement later that night, we interrupted my dad’s viewing of the lunar eclipse from his front porch and my mom’s viewing of Nick at Night reruns in the TV room. They were thrilled, of course. Poured a drink to toast, hugs and kisses all around for about an hour, Then, “Ok, ba-bye. Gotta go to bed.”

Now, I know these After-Proms extravaganzas were designed out of loving concern for our kids’ safety. There were too many drunk driving incidents and tragedies back in the day. But the cold, hard reality is that in spite of the After-Prom planning and expense and coffee-soaked all-nighters, these kids are drinking anyway. They’re just doing it the day afterthe After-Prom, when they are already sleep deprived from us making them stay up all night in a high school gymnasium decorated to be a Casino or New Orleans street or Paris or whatever. And guess what? They’re not drinking legal 3.2 beer. They’re drinking vodka, gin, whiskey. 

What is the matter with us parents? It’s not the kids’ fault. We created this monster. We are the ones that push, or at the very least enable them to be in all those travel sports teams in middle school, AP classes right from the starting gate, and Prom as wedding events.  As my own Millennial kids often remind me when we roll our eyes at them, “Mom, we didn’t give ourselvesthose participation trophies growing up. You all did.” Touché´.

I guess the good news about all this organized, temporary Prom sobriety is that it has ingrained in our teenagers and young adults the knowledge to always have a DD, a designated driver. That really didn’t happen back in the day. Perhaps the bleary-eyed mornings after being up all night dressed as a clown, handing out balloons and candy are worth it. All I can say is, thank God for Uber.