I imagine there are some people in this world who do the right thing and then build on it. And by right I don’t mean proper, but successful. That is to say they are victorious, and then victorious once again. I don’t know these people, and I’m certainly not one of them.
Most of my successes (and joys for that matter) have come from standing, not on the shoulders of giants, but lemons. And while a lemon won’t hold you steady, it will teach you the true meaning of balance with every wobble. Every victory will be earned. Maybe not the first time, nor even the second. But oh, how it will let you shine in that glow of the yellow. The yellow of bloom and blossom. Of sunlight and growth. Of evening lamp lit long into the study. Of the morning that comes again and again, whispering try, just try. The yellow that keeps the farmer planting. The grandmother washing dishes. The single mother walking to the office for little wage. The daughter studying for a school they can’t afford to pay, one she can’t afford to miss. Beautiful, and glorious lemons.
I paint them again and again, as the heroes of my story. The bright and shiny yellows of my life, my love.
Sometimes I worry about things changing. Of course it can be difficult. But we’re always given the tools. So when I’m in the throws of it, I just try to remember egg salad.
My first years in France, I searched for white eggs. We just don’t have them. But the Easter eggs? How will I dye them? That problem was solved, because I couldn’t find the dye either. It took me awhile, but the answers were at hand. With combinations of water colors and non-toxic paint (and I’ve eaten enough of it through the years to know, just by licking my paint brush) I have found a way to make, what I think, are beautiful Easter eggs.
It takes me hours to paint them. Many joyful hours. Today I will have to crack them. Throw the shells away. But that doesn’t take away the joy, it only brings on new. I like egg salad a lot.
I wrote it before, and I’ll say it again, “I believe perfection knows no time constraints, because the time spent with you has been perfect.”
Life continues to change. We are asked to make lemonade and sometimes egg salad. And through it all, we find, we learn, again and again, life can be so delicious!
I wasn’t planning to do it all yesterday. I thought I would just start with the jam. I made the first batch in the morning, and by early afternoon the remaining apricots said, “It’s time.”
It being a Sunday afternoon, in France, my options were limited. I only had enough sucre spécial confiture (sugar for making jam) to create another small batch. I decided that I would make a tart as well. It became clear very quickly that I was going to have to Elsie my way through this. Within each recipe there was something that I didn’t have. Almond flour. Nope. Next. Whipping cream. No. Next. And this went on and on as the stores remained closed. I finally stumbled upon one where I had almost everything but the corn starch. Google recommended Arrowroot or Psyllium husk. If my pantry didn’t contain corn starch, how likely was it to contain Psyllium husk? My inner Elsie took over. More flour here, mixed with a dash more sugar. Vanilla, why not. And some of the jam I made that morning — of course I added it atop the fresh apricots and my homemade crust.
While the tart was in the oven, I made another batch of the apricot jam. No apricots lost, and the house smelled of sweet victory. The thing is, we don’t always get to be ready. Possibly never. Yet, life ripens before us at a blistering pace, handing us a bowl of apricots, (sometimes lemons), and we get to decide whether we’re going to make something of it, or not.
I’ve always been a bit of a worrier. It was my Grandma Elsie who showed me how to tweak that recipe and change it from worrier to warrior. With 9 children, “open or closed on a Sunday” would have been the least of her battles. And yet she conquered them all, ever so sweetly.
It turns out the most important ingredients in a French tart are Swedish hands and a creative heart. Bon Appétit!
They haven’t taken down the Christmas trees here in the south. They’ve just changed the decorations to Mardi Gras. Maybe all endings are just beginnings.
It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise when we finally moved from Van Dyke Road. We had inched our way down the road, a house at a time. First the white. Then the green. Then the brown. But it did.
I dropped my bike at the end of the driveway in front of the For Sale sign. This was different. The metal stakes in the ground said this was it. The red pick-up was gone. Only my mom’s car.
We used the empty stall for a garage sale. It wasn’t the neighbors that came. They were strangers. Touching our things. Things we wouldn’t have space for in an apartment. I leaned against my bike, wanting desperately to pedal away. Not being able to move. I should have helped. I could have priced things. Sold things. Arranged. But I was stuck. Stuck in our ending.
It took a few apartments on Jefferson Street, but we got there. We got to our beginning. Filled our closets. Filled our hearts. Made new traditions. Embraced the beauty of the impermanence, and just began to live. Keeping our hearts full of Christmas, we hung the purple, green and gold of Mardi Gras.
Change is inevitable. It is constant. It can be difficult. It will be. But the colors. The colors of it all can be —. so very beautiful! And so we begin. And begin again.
I don’t think it makes me a serial killer just because I like my dishtowel to hang neatly. (They seemed to imply this in the movie Sleeping with the Enemy.)
I suppose I could have gone either way. My grandma’s kitchen was always, well, I’ll say it, a mess. Dishes piled head high. Pots still on the stove. My mother liked a clean sink. The dishrag hung alone over the faucet, testing the humidity level of her apartment. It was a good day for her if she woke to a dry rag in an empty sink.
It’s funny what brings us comfort. An ironed dish towel hanging neatly in the kitchen is enough to start my day off right. And it doesn’t mean I love my grandma any less, I just know what works for me.
There was a tiny plaque by my grandma’s stove. Above the picture of a very pregnant woman it read, “I should have danced all night.” Perhaps my mother took that advice to heart. She never taught me how to cook, but she did teach me how to dance. Her kitchen recipes included “Slow, quick-quick. Slow, quick-quick. 1-2-3, 1-2-3. A heel and a toe and a polka step.” And so we danced in that clean kitchen, never disrupted by a boiling pot.
I suppose there’s a little of both of them in my French kitchen. I know my grandma is watching as I boil the fruit from our trees to make jam. And it is my mother’s hand that gives me the slight nudge to change direction as she dances me through my clean kitchen.
When my son-in-law washes his hands and leaves the towels in a heap, I don’t really want to kill him. But I would like to tell him a story. Of a chubby woman laughing, a tall woman dancing, both leading me in love.
It’s a crazy world. We all have to find our own joyful way. Do what works for you. (And don’t forget to wash your hands.)
We started off quite similar — Dominique and I comparing grandmothers. Chubby and welcoming. Sure. Always cooking. Yes. A picture of Jesus hanging in the bedroom. Of course. Chinchillas in the basement? What? This is where we began to differ.
She always had a line on something, my Grandma Elsie. Some may have called it a scheme, but I think it was more of a dream. She loved the idea of winning. Whether it was with the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes, or the swamp land in Florida, the coupon on the back of the toasted marshmallow’s package, or raising Chinchillas in the basement. Even in her final letter to her children and grandchildren, she apologized for not making the big score that she so wanted to give them.
She was wrong. Not for trying, no. I think it was fun for her, so why not. But I’m not sure she saw the value in what she gave to us daily. This is how we won. With an aproned hug. A lick of the spoon in the batter. Lemonade on the stickiest of summer days. A Lazy Susan filled with candy. A door never locked. A heart always open.
We won with every visit. We never took naps, but instead ate our lunch in front of the tv watching Days of Our Lives. We played cards and dice – games in which she beat us desperately, but it was the time spent together that felt like winning. Most of her sentences began with “Don’t tell grandpa…” — secrets that felt like wrapped and bowed presents.
She was the last person I remember picking me up, when I was too old and too heavy, my legs dangled in the air. This is the lottery that I win every day.
The games we play may be different now. Trying to win “likes” and “followers.” And I am just as guilty as the next person, thinking, “If I only had this…” But in the quiet moments of the morning. With only the sound of my fingers typing the memory, I feel my heart fill, my legs dangle, and I know, all sweepstakes have been won.
Some said it was in the way, my grandparents’ kitchen table. But for me, for my mother, it was something to lean on. The stability we craved.
The legs were at an angle, protruding just a little beyond the table top. You could kick it. Bump into it. Throw groceries, suitcases, all of your worries, on top of it. It was never going to crumble.
It took a while for my mother to get her legs beneath her. But she did. Oh how she did! And not just holding her up, but at that slight angle – that confident stride. Maybe they saw it in her first – the people of Alexandria. “Oh, I saw you walking yesterday.” “I see you out walking all the time.” “Aren’t you that lady that I see walking?” And when she answered yes to them, maybe she started to hear it herself. Yes. See it in herself. Yes, I am that lady.
I suppose we all have to become the stability that we crave. Table by table. Step by step. The sun rises with one question, we rise, and say simply, joyfully — Yes!
Whatever you need, this table is strong. Jodi Hills
First I sanded it. Then cut it. Then sanded it again. It smelled brand new, this wood — this wood that he gave to me from the scrap pile. I squared it. Nailed it. Then stretched the material over this frame. I gessoed the canvas, and gessoed it again. And then I began to paint. I was invested long before the image came out. Long before the yellows and greens. Before the dimension rose from the surface. It was a part of me. A part of him. A part of the field of overgrown weeds, on the side of the mountain. A part of the story.
I was reading the reviews to the last book I read — a book that I adored. I wanted to be a part of the group – a part of the people talking about the experience. Most of the reviews were positive, but there was one that I just couldn’t believe. Now, I know that everyone doesn’t like the same thing, and that’s fine, but this negative review was so ridiculous in its reasoning. It said,(surrounded by a lot of other unflattering words) “it was just a bunch of stories.” What??? I still can’t believe it. Yes, it was, as you say, a bunch of stories. It was a grouping of beautiful stories. A gathering of lives. Because isn’t that all we are – a gathering of stories? Those we have lived through. Shared. The stories that trigger your memory. The stories that help you get through your own story. Gather you into mine. The stories that make a path. Guide you into the future. Comfort you in the darkness. Laugh with you in the light. These are our lives. All of these stories. And to me, that is beautiful!
These stories of my mother, my grandparents, my schoolmates and friends, these are the piles of scattered wood that, when treated with care, take on new form, new life. I know this painting of the lemons won’t last forever. But I’d like to think that one day, after it hangs in one home, then another, maybe it gets painted over, and hung again, or maybe restretched with a new canvas, maybe the wood frames a different painting, or braces a different structure, maybe eventually it burns in the fireplace, and comforts you as you share your story with the one you love.
