Holiday?

            This is a holiday weekend.  I know this because they were talking about it on the news and offering suggestions for things to do.  It doesn’t “feel” like a holiday to me, but then the last few haven’t felt like they were holidays either.  Holidays should feel special, with different food, fun activities, and visiting with people we don’t see often.  Warm weather holidays generally lend themselves to larger pot luck gatherings with extended family. 

            When I was growing up, and even when my kids were small, the summer holidays were spent usually at my parents’ house with my siblings and their spouses (I was the first to have children), and usually at least one of my aunts.  Mom’s potato and macaroni salads were always on the menu, as well as ‘burgers and dogs’ on the grill, an assortment of vegetable sticks, cheese and crackers, potato chips, and watermelon.  Sometimes sweet corn and cookies or cake were served as well. She always made her own lemonade and iced tea served out of large thermos jugs, too. When we had the big picnic on Labor Day, there were one aunt’s ‘famous’ baked beans, another ones cucumber salad, still another ones fresh garden tomatoes (which she sliced in her hand while talking to her sisters, without ever once cutting her hand), and someone always brought deviled eggs.  They were special days filled with the conversations and laughs you hear whenever relatives who enjoy each other’s company gather after being separated for months. I love those memories, and the pictures we used to take to remember the day by.  Now we don’t have so many relatives, and usually it’s just the 4 of us hanging out, having a day off of work.  I try to make the food special, but the day just doesn’t hold much of anything different from any other weekend day.  It’s a little sad but we’re all so tired from the hectic pace of our weekdays that we just want to spend the day relaxing.  Sometimes we do get together with our siblings, but definitely not this year what with the pandemic and all the restrictions on group gatherings.  Maybe next year we can try to make things a little more special.

            I hope that for you, the holiday is as special as you want it to be.  If what you really want is just a day to relax, I hope you get that; if you want to do something special, I hope you get to do that, too.  As for me, I’ll be hanging out in the back yard, possibly playing “Yahtzee!” or “Scrabble”, eating snacks and feasting on burgers and dogs.  Maybe I’ll make some of that potato salad and macaroni salad too.   

Sundays And Books

Sleepy Sunday morning,

Rain drips from the trees,

Lazy thoughts are mingled,

With gossamer threads of dreams,

Wisps of steam rise, curling,

From hot brew in a cup,

Cozy feelings all around,

On Sunday morning waking up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     Sunday mornings of my youth were not relaxing. We were all (my brothers and I) up early, breakfasted, dressed, and dropped off at the church for 9:30 Sunday school. Dad dropped us off, while Mom got ready and then drove to the church in time for choir warm up. Dad didn't attend church; I'm not sure what he did while we were all out of the house besides listen to country music. He was alone in his love of that genre, and it was his chance to listen to it outside of the basement where he spent much time tinkering with radios and old TVs, and probably reading paperbacks. His favorites were mysteries and westerns, Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Louie L’Amour are authors names I recall seeing at our house. I think that his choices influenced both my love of reading, and my tendency to read mysteries and stories set in the Midwest with horses and cowboy characters. I don't think he got his books from the library, as I don't recall him ever going inside ours. Rather, there always seemed to be a paper bag of paperback books around the house. Maybe he got them from a friend, or one of my aunts. I never questioned it; it's just something that always was. It’s funny how we often don’t question things that were in our growing up houses.  They were just there, part of who we all were and would become later in life, influencing us by their mere presence.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Library

I really miss the library,

Meandering through the stacks

Of books, each one enticing,

With covers both colorful and black,

Promising to dazzle me

With words and clever phrases,

To teach and entertain me,

As I read through story mazes,

Alas! They are all closed,

Due to this ugly virus,

One day they will reopen,

To teach and entertain us.

          I have been missing the library.  It is one of my favorite places to spend a little time.  The smell of the books, the rows of colorful covers creating a mosaic of temptation; I want to touch them, run my fingertips along them as I meander through the stacks.  It’s so enjoyable to read the titles, pick which ones to check out, and sample a little of the first page before deciding.  I usually limit myself to 3 at a time because under normal circumstances I don’t have a lot of time to read. 

          On the last day I worked before things started closing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I stopped at the library on the way home and checked out a stack of books, as many as I could carry.  I should have taken a bag with me, but it was a decision I made at work so wasn’t prepared.  My thinking was that since the schools were closed, the library would likely also have to close and I didn’t want to end up with time to read but nothing new to dive into.  Initially it was to be a 2 week closing of the schools, but as it turns out, it’s to be 5 ½ months. I don’t think the library will be opening any time soon, so far it’s been 2 months and there doesn’t seem to be an end date in sight.  I do spend quite a bit of time reading as I find it a wonderful way to escape the grim and crazy news reports on all media.  It took about 3 weeks for me to read through my initial stack, and I was going to start rereading the books I have around the house, but my daughter started bringing me stacks of books from her bookcase that she got at one of the library’s book sales.  How wonderful!  I should be good with books for a while.  I know I could have read e-books, but I don’t enjoy them as much as the “old fashioned” paper kind.  The look, the smell, the feel of a book is intoxicating to me; it’s all part of experiencing a story.

          If you are a reader, and find yourself not working during this life changing time of life, I wish you many books.

Mother's Day

               As Mother’s Day approaches it’s natural that we would think about our mothers who have passed on.  It’s painful for many as they are missing their mothers and this day to honor them feels wrong when they are not here to be with them.  I miss my mother’s physical presence every day.  How many times a day do you find yourself wanting to tell her something, or ask her something? Probably countless times is the answer.  The thing is, though, that her influence is with me all the time. The things she liked, the things she found distasteful, her way of organizing the house and her day all are still with me, whether I follow those ways myself or not.

               My mother had a ‘schedule’ that she followed.  It wasn’t written down or anything like that, but Mondays were sheet changing days, and they were washed, dried and put away once they were taken off the beds.  I’m more of a nonschehedule type of housekeeper; I do things as I have time depending on what else is going on. Thursday night was grocery shopping, or maybe it was Friday?  I’m not quite sure about that, but her list was organized by how the store was laid out, something I also do as it makes it easier to remember everything we need.  My love of music stems from there always being music in our life.  Whether it was the radio, records, or my mother playing the piano, from a young age our house was filled with melodies.  She sang in the church choir and encouraged all four of us kids to play musical instruments and join school chorus and church choir. Yes, our house overflowed with music.  Mom was an early riser, a carryover from her having been raised on a farm where the days started very early with chores.  She had a habit of running errands early in the day, as soon as stores and the post office were open.  I, too, prefer to run errands early in the day just as she did. I use her recipes, and can picture her in my mind grating cheese for macaroni and cheese, stirring a pot of tomato sauce, and kneading bread dough.  I see, in my mind’s eye, her delight at flowers and remember her showing all her plants around the yard to visitors in the summer, and digging in a small patch of garden planting vegetable seeds, and pulling weeds.  Nothing was better than when she’d go out early in the morning in the summer and pick black raspberries for us to have on our cereal.  My love of words comes from her, and we played countless games of Scrabble.  She usually won, but on those rare occasions when I beat her it gave me a feeling of accomplishment.  I think of her every day, in so many different ways.

               Even though I am sad that I no longer have my mother to delight with a gift of flowers, I celebrate her memory on Mother’s Day and every day.  I hope you find some comfort in your memories of your mother.