What we used to call the “penny candy” is now fifteen cents each, but that seemed like a very small price to pay for the additional time travel. Placing the Razzles in the bag, I was in the first grade, next to Gerald Reed, accepting his tokens of affection behind pink cheeks. Each Bazooka Joe plopped me onto gravel in front of our mailbox on Van Dyke Road, patiently waiting for the mailman to bring the gift I ordered from the cartoon wrappers. Zots and licorice, right back to Ben Franklin, frantically filling the sack before the cartoon previews began at the Alexandria Theatre next door. Each trip worth every penny!
I gave the candy to my friends in their early Easter Basket. They wanted to share, but I had already been filled with the travel, the love and the joy. It all comes down to experience. Connections. Time spent with the ones we love — those sitting beside us unwrapping the candy, and those we carry in our hearts, deliciously ever!
“So then my brush goes between my fingers as if it were a bow on the violin and absolutely for my pleasure.”
I ran into my grandma’s kitchen. If the screen door slamming wasn’t enough to convey my fury, I clenched my fists firmly by my hips and screamed over the motor mixing the dough. “But I gave her all of my candy!” My grandma put down her spatula and turned off the mixer. A blending of cousins ran around the summer grass. I wanted to make friends with the girl arriving from Illinois, so I filled my pocket from the Lazy Susan, I explained — Slowpokes, Sugar Daddies and Babies. I gave them all to her, in exchange, I thought, for immediate friendship, but she ran off to play with my cousin from a Minneapolis suburb. “They are sitting under the apple tree right now, eating my candy!” My grandma looked down at me and smiled, “You mean eating MY candy.” I shook my head reluctantly — she had a point. She wiped her hand on her apron before tossling my enhanced summer blonde. “Always be a cheerful giver,” she said. I turned to make my way to the front door. “Hey,” she said, and pointed with her head to the corner cabinet. “There’s plenty more.” I filled my pockets again. She had given me everything I needed, and candy too.
Be it gift or heart, I’m not proud to say that I have to learn the lesson quite often, to be a cheerful giver. Sharing with no sense of obligation. With no demand of return. Just loving. Even with and to myself. To do things, out of pure pleasure, without condition.
I painted the violin chair with no expectation. Well, maybe one — joy. When I sold it, I heard my grandma say, ever so cheerfully, “Hey!”
It was the best marzipan candy I ever had. There was a little bit left and she said we could take it home. We ate two in the car driving alongside the Mediterranean. Somehow we managed to save the remaining couple and finished them off that evening. I scoured the small empty box for a brand or anything that would lead me to having more, but there was nothing. Holding it in my hand on the way to the garbage, I felt it. It was just like a small panel. I took it to the studio to paint.
It seemed so obvious that I needed to paint a bird, a friend for the bird I had made the day before. I sanded and gessoed. I feathered and branched. Taking everything that was sweet, and giving it wings.
The thing is, we don’t always get to reciprocate, or repay the same kindness we are given. But we can keep giving, in so many different ways. And by doing so, it truly offers the “having more” we wanted all along. So I pass it to you — this joy, this delicious joy carried on wings — knowing you will find a way to do the same. Isn’t life sweet?!!!!
It was only out of complete desperation that I ate the semi-sweet chocolate chips in the upper cupboard of our kitchen. We didn’t have a continuous stock of candy in our house like my grandma. I stockpiled from each holiday and saved a bit from the Ben Franklin run before the Saturday matinee, so I was able to keep a small stash for afterschool snacks. On the rare occasion that I ran out, I frantically searched the house. Checking first the milk glass candy dish in the living room, but it only contained what my friends called “grandma candy” – usually mints. (Which I never understood, because no one had better candy than my grandma.) Only one other option remained. I pulled the wooden dining chair in front of the corner cupboards. Climbed up. Standing on the orange formica, I spun the lazy susan to the baking goods. Found the chocolate chips. Prayed for the off chance that we also had butterscotch chips to mix with the semisweet. We rarely did. Sitting on the counter’s edge, I poured a handful of the dark chocolate, still hoping for something sweet.
I mention it only because I marvel at my youthful expectation. After countless climbs, it was always the same result — bittersweet — yet I remained ever hopeful. I suppose believers always believe.
I don’t know what today will bring, but there’s a part of me that wakes, ready to push the chair, make the climb, hoist my feet and heart, in search of something sweet. I still believe.
We took the bus from the roller rink to city park. Our sweaty legs were the only things grounding us to this world and the green pleather bus seats. We hovered between the exaltation of this finale to the fifth grade, and the silent wishing that this day would never end.
We jumped on picnic tables and rolled in the promise of summer grass. Our teachers started a fire and passed around graham crackers, marshmallows and Hershey chocolate bars. Some of the boys lunged with the toasting skewers, fighting off the time. Then blackened their marshmallows in the fire. The girls roasted theirs to a delicate brown. The hot marshmallow melted the chocolate sandwiched between the graham crackers. We all shook our heads in agreement to the name — s’more! For that’s all we wanted — more!
Perhaps it was the crash of the sugar high that silenced us on the bus ride back to school, but I think it was more than that. The open windowed breezes blew through t-shirts and pony tails, as our heads rested on classmates’ shoulders. Maybe we knew how special this day was. How exotic to catch yourself in transition. The magic of this moment, no longer a fifth grader, not yet in junior high…just here, together, joyfully sweated in our exhaustive friendships of youth. I mean we used everything. We spared nothing. We gave each other every laugh. Every tear and fear. We faced every open window. Together. Knowing we had it all. Knowing there would be more.
I laughed the first time I saw them in the exotic aisle of the grocery store here in France. Hershey Bars. Exotic! And then I was transported in time and place. Tasting this magical day of so long ago, so far away. And in that moment, I thought, they got it right. What could be more magical than this? More exotic?
I stood silent. Catching myself in the between. Hovering in this space of brand new and brand familiar. My imaginary pony tail brushed across my face and I smiled.
I will give everything. And humbly shake my head in the agreement, “S’more!”
Whoever this Susan was, I liked her. And she couldn’t have been all that lazy, I thought, because her cupboard was always full. I thought Susan was the one who bought all the candy in that cupboard. Whenever we wanted a treat at my Grandma’s house, she would point to the corner cupboard and say Lazy Susan. My eager chubby brain and fingers didn’t take the time to analyze that this was just what the spinning rack was called — the spinning rack that held all my grandma’s candy. I liked believing some magical woman named Susan kept her cupboard full. Like maybe she worked directly with the Tooth Fairy.
Something was lost when I learned there was no Susan fairy, nor Tooth, but I gained something better — the knowledge that I had a grandma who would keep her cupboard filled with treats – easy access treats – on the bottom shelf – the bottom spinning shelf – all for us to enjoy. And she didn’t buy what some called the “grandma treats” like hard mint candies, or burnt-orange peanuts. No she had Slo-pokes, and Black cows. Sugar Daddies. Toasted marshmallows. Chocolate bars and more chocolate bars.
And as I got older. More truths came out. More losses. But one thing remained constant. The easy access of things given at my grandparent’s farm. The easy access of open spaces to run in. Secret rooms to hide in. Endless fields that said, be yourself. An open cupboard that said, keep believing in magic. And a love that remained full. Always within reach.
