Words and Music and Memory

It's been many years since I lived with a piano. I have not had daily access to one since I moved away from home. So it's wonderful and strange to once again share my space with one of these imposing pieces of musical furniture.

The piano that now sits in my front hallway beckoned me yesterday when I came upon some old Gilbert and Sullivan sheet music. I sat to play, but it wasn't the plaintive strains of Tit Willow that sent me into reverie, it was what fell out of the book of sheet music.

Hidden away between the pages were some photographs of my mother and father, taken perhaps a year or so before my mother became ill and only a couple of years before their deaths. I felt startled, but I cannot say why. They are familiar faces of loved ones, faces one has known for a lifetime yet strangely missing for some time from my view. I thought briefly about what to do with them, then slid them back into the book of music and continued playing.

This morning, the images of the photos came back into my mind and I wondered if I oughtn't to frame a picture to put atop the piano. But something stopped me, a fear of something I cannot name.

Perhaps it is only that there are not daily reminders that makes it possible to live in a world that is forever changed by their absences. I don't know why I should feel unnerved by photographs of my parents, it may be that they are so alive and themselves in these pictures, and I am overwhelmed.

On Christmas Eve, it will have been 6 years since my mother succumbed to the cancer that took her life. I wonder how long it will be before I can look at a photo and not feel the emptiness that her passing left in my world.

Memorial Day - in remembrance

Memorial Day is just another holiday to most of us who have never had to say goodbye to a father, son or brother as he was deployed in his nation's service. Those of us who never had a gravesite to visit, or lay flowers upon, have a vague sense of the meaning of the day, but ultimately its importance is that of every three-day weekend. The day means cookouts and family fun, or an extra day to relax or do chores. I confess that, over the years, this attitude has crept in upon me as well. Strangely, I was more aware of the day when I was young.

Every Memorial Day was parade day in my little hometown. My friends and I would walk or ride our bikes downtown to watch the mix of veterans, policemen, firemen, boy and girl scouts and nearly anyone in uniform march to the often painful insistence of the high school marching band. There were baton twirlers and flag bearers, all of whom practiced throughout the school year for this, their shining moment in the sun.

A punctuating moment in each parade was when the members of the Historical Society, dressed in colonial garb, fired a 21-gun salute with their muskets in the town center by the American flag. A fife and drum accompanied their solemn marching, and though they were a rag-tag bunch, the effect was profound.

The final destination for the parade was the Town Hall, where the marchers joined the spectators and one audience was formed as the names of hometown heroes who had fallen was read. The brave men who were lost in battle, and the old men who, having returned from war, used to march in the parade. Men who, just the year before, stood here among us, silently honoring their comrades and brothers, men whose names were now on that same list.

Our hometown parade was a small and amateurish affair, but its purpose shone through as brilliantly as the sun striking the gleam of those brass band instruments. It taught me how to value life and freedom. It taught me how to mourn those I did not know, simply because their lives were worthy and their absence worthy of note.

Of Lilacs and Memories

Although my childhood is far behind me, although my childhood home has long been passed on to the hands of new owners and although my parents have been gone for several years, now and again I will see or experience something that takes me right back there. I suddenly become the child I was, and the flood of memories overwhelms me.

Yesterday, while looking out of the window, searching for The Boy who was visiting a friend, I just happened to notice a lilac tree peeking out from behind the corner of a house across the street. Suddenly my senses yearned for the delicate scent of lilacs and apple blossoms on a warm, spring breeze.

Immediately upon sighting that lilac tree, I was transported back to my childhood home. All that I was and all that I had came to me and wrapped itself around me like a soft, worn blanket. But these moments bring a second wave of emotion that is without comfort. A moment of longing, nostalgia and loss.

This morning when I opened the window, a familiar fragrance wafted through on the morning air. A faint scent of lilac entered and assured me that all that I was, is all that I am; and though out of reach, my parents and my childhood are not forever lost to me. As long as I exist, they exist still in some way. As long as the lilacs bloom in spring, their lovely perfume will bring me home.

Baked Bean Philosophy

You don't realize it until you are grown and on your own with the full responsibility of cooking for yourself, or maybe until you are in a strange place with unfamiliar cuisine, but there's something you yearn for and cannot obtain. The further we get from our home and childhood, the stronger this need becomes. We want what Mom used to make. Mom's food was more than good, more than tasty. There's a comfort, a warmth and a feeling of strong bonds and love in a mother's cooking.

I experienced this not long after my mother passed away, when my father was ill and it seemed sure the house would be sold. My childhood was being disassembled. Suddenly, I wanted my mother's baked beans. I set about finding out her recipe and buying the ingredients and although they were not as good as hers, I felt slightly more at ease. Something about my mother still existed, some part of my childhood could stay with me, in some small way all those memories could live.

I made Baked Beans several times over the course of a year, but haven't made them since. They are not a favorite of my family, and so this memory must remain all mine. Still, I know that I can revisit Saturday night Franks and Beans anytime I like, and as long as I know that, my mom and my childhood will never die within me.

Stirring Memory and Desire

Years ago there was a television series called "The Wonder Years". It chronicled the life experiences of a middle-school age boy whose main goal was to win the heart of his first love. The show was often charming, but after a time it wore on my nerves, mainly because there was nearly constant voice-over narrative that was highly detailed. The truth is, no one could remember that much about each individual day of his life. If we could, it would probably drive us crazy.

Memory is a strange thing. I don't have such moment to moment memories as the kid in The Wonder Years, but what memories I do have, I like to believe are my own. Yet recently, I have twice been present to hear stories of my life told by other family members as if these events happened to them. In each case, I am sure these are my memories and not theirs, so when did they appropriate them?

I have heard it said that if one hears a story enough times, they may incorporate it so that after a while, it seems like a memory rather than just a story of their childhood told to them by others. Perhaps this is what has happened. Or perhaps there were only so many stories to go around and my mother told us all the same ones, so that we all think these things happened to us.

I didn't bother to stop the stories or question the storytellers about these memories. I simply sat in a confused state and pondered. Would I upset some delicate balance in their lives by challenging what they believe was an event that shaped their futures?

This blog is often filled with memories, it is its very purpose. To consider that I may have only imagined some life-changing occurrence might cause the very foundation of my life to crumble. So I will continue to believe that my memory is intact and accurate and feel compassion for the other members of my family who are clearly starting to grow old and forgetful.

Fingering Memories

I spent part of the day going through the drawers in The Boy's dresser. One of those clean-outs that are necessary more often than they are performed. The hard part is actually making the decision to get rid of too-small clothes. It's strange how items of clothing make memories.

I found a couple of Spiderman shirts. These are several sizes too small, but they survived previous clean-outs by virtue of having Spidey on them. The Boy has turned 9 now, and he is much too mature for superhero T-shirts.
But these hold memories of another time, a whole other childhood. A childhood that had a little more wonder, when he was a little boy, and not a "kid".

It's hard to put the memories aside, harder still to let go of them as they grow.

I did fairly well, considering. I managed to turn up a lost video game and one of my books that I haven't seen in enough years that it's worth reading again.

I also managed to weed out the ill-fitting clothes and made room for the ones he actually wears. It was a brief, shining moment of useful behavior. I hope I can avoid doing it again for a long time.

The Elegance of Time

I think my mother's love of clocks began with her mother and stemmed from the old grandfather clock that occupied a prominent place in her family's home. I was fascinated by this clock as a child, and loved to watch the pendulum as it ticked away the time. I noticed that nearly all my grandmother's offspring incorporated grandfather clocks into their decor. My grandmother also had a cuckoo clock - not as impressive as the grandfather clock, but it was delightful to wait and watch for the emergence of the tiny herald of the hour. Days spent visiting my grandmother would have been fairly boring without these timely distractions.

My mother kept lots of clocks, mantel clocks, cuckoo clocks, and various decorative wall clocks. I inherited this clock obsession, but I think that for me, it's a need to watch the time. I have always felt time slipping away, and I am more comfortable when I can convince myself I have a firm grip on it. I even keep one clock set to daylight savings time year-round, just so no changes sneak up on me unawares.

Luckily, clocks can also be decorative as well and functional, so I can indulge my obsession with a little style and flair. And there is even a Clocks Blog to help me feed my obsession and give me interesting facts and histories of all kinds of clocks. I was particularly drawn to this article on mantel clocks and how distinctive and elegant they become when set atop a fireplace mantel. If you're lucky enough to have a fireplace, then I highly recommend having a mantel above it and a roaring fire in it.

Did I mention my obsession with fireplaces?

It's All Creative Force

I still write. Sometimes I write a lot, sometimes very little. I feel thwarted, blocked and uninspired often. I feel the need to update nagging at me even more often.

Writing comes from some unseen creative force that moves me, I want to but cannot push my creativity through my own force. But what I realize, is that if one avenue is blocked, another allows it through.

I have always enjoyed creating things although I do not consider myself a "crafty" person. The desire to create may be inherited. My mother was a creative person who drew and wrote; my father was a carpenter, constructing visions with his hands. My earliest inclinations followed both these paths.

For instance, I wanted to learn to knit for both creative and practical reasons. I could make clothes for my dolls, hats and mittens and afghans for myself. I employed my older sister in the position of instructor, as she was already proficient in the art of knitting. This, however, had disaster written all over it. My sister is left-handed, I am right hand dominant. As she taught me, I had to envision everything as the other way round, practice taking what I observed as if it were a mirror image. I still haven't got the hang of mirrors, which is why I don't use a curling iron - I simply can't make my mind join the command of my brain to go one way with that hand in the mirror going the opposite way. I soon abandoned her tutelage.

Eventually, I did learn to knit, but I did it through a set of books that I now consider the greatest resource of my childhood, The Book of Knowledge. Full of everything from world history to fairy tales to how to build a birdhouse, The Book of Knowledge taught me anything I desired to know.

I dismissed any backwards practices I had learned from my sister and started by very carefully following the instructions and illustrations provided by the book. I remember how disappointing it was to find my lovely knitted square was a bit more oblong that it ought to be, but through practice and patience my skills improved.

Learning to knit was a great boon for me as a young girl, for I branched out and learned the art of circular needles, knitting, purling and changing colors. For Christmas I was able to present each of my friends and family with a handmade pair of mittens.

I don't knit anymore, my hands won't hold the needles long enough or grip them tightly enough these days. But learning to knit enriched my life in many ways beyond the simple joy of a completed project. It taught me that creativity takes many forms and must be allowed to come forth, in any medium that it chooses.

Thumbelina

Christmas is past, and if I may say so, it went off with a bang. And a whistle. And some humming, and some loud music, some crashes, some booms and some alien laser-fire. But enough about the toys my kids got.

I received my most technologically advanced gift when I was just 7 years old - a baby Thumbelina. Thumbelina wasn't a mere doll that lay lifeless and still in your arms. She writhed and squirmed like a real baby, and so enchanted was I that she quickly became the entire focus of my life. My grandmother, whose generation had never seen the like of such toys, could not believe that a doll could seem so alive. I am not sure that she is so beloved in my memory because of her amazing talents, or if it was because her life was to be so short. Snatched from my arms by a neighborhood dog, her brief existence ended in shreds and tatters.

Compared to the toys that my daughter has owned, dolls that coo, walk, talk, eat, and must be potty-trained, Thumbelina was not a technological wonder. I think I loved her more though, than my daughter did any of her dolls which were endowed with more human qualities. Toys of today require so much less imagination of our children, and that is a mistake. Imagination is the greatest gift our children possess and it should be cultivated and nurtured. Toys that do everything appeal to them, and they clamor for them, but watch what happens when they actually get them. The more bells and whistles the toy possesses, the more quickly it is discarded for other pursuits, such as making a car out of the cardboard box the toy came in.

My son received video games, a realistic plug 'n play car steering wheel with racing games on board, and a host of other toys that beep and flash to music and sound effects. He has spent the day instead crafting two swords complete with scabbards, pirate hats and a world of knights, kings and dragons - equipped with nothing more than a block of construction paper, a pair of scissors, a roll of tape and his imagination. What he has fashioned from his own creativity has completely replaced all other toys in his inventory.

It would be impossible to put empty cardboard boxes and scissors and tape under the Christmas tree. They would be spurned, the children would view them as the equivalent of coal in their stockings. The bangs and whistles and bells and booms must be tied up in ribbons and left by a loving Santa who will understand when they are forgotten and replaced by a child's imagination.

The Tween Christmas

It was a rough Christmas for The Girl. She is 13, the age where no one quite knows what to buy for you. At 13, you are too old for dolls, although some part of you may still yearn for them. At 13, you love new and fashionable clothes, but still feel cheated if that is all you get. It's the equivalent of an "underwear Christmas". But there are no "toys" for 13-year-olds. Basically, there are electronics and video games, the occasional board game that disappoints because you can never get anyone to sit and play it with you and there are clothes.

Don't get me wrong, she loved her presents, even the clothes and the "girly" items. But some part of her deep down inside is not quite ready to give up her child's Christmas. I understand because I was thirteen once. Thirteen is a bridge between the child you were and the woman you will be. The woman who is struggling to become tries to shake off the child that still desperately clings and it's both exhilirating and heartbreaking.

I remember when I was nearly that age, maybe 11 or 12. I had my eye on a doll that rode her own little bike and it was just the sort of doll I had always wanted but never had found under the Christmas tree. Due to one of my tomboyish escapades, I had broken a tooth some years earlier and now I was at the age where the dentist wanted to do a more permanent repair; my dental age being sufficiently matured, something other than the bonding was required. Because this was to be a long and painful procedure, my mother wanted to reward me with something that would make up for the long hours in the dentist chair and lift my spirits. I asked for that doll.

It wasn't until I actually had the doll in hand that I realized what a mistake it was to have asked for it. I wanted to play with her and feel the joy and wonder that I would have felt if I had been a few years younger, but I didn't. No, I wasn't trying to recapture my youth. I realize now, it was the child in me trying to create the experience she had always wanted and never had. A last desperate act of the child in me trying to resolve final issues and tie up loose ends as the woman slowly assumed control.

I wish I weren't aware of my tween's struggle, or why she seemed so disappointed. It would be easier to tell her to grow up and act her age, to explain that she is too old for toys and that she needed the clothes and the boots and the bath accessories. But instead, I want to go out and buy her a toy, a doll, or a stuffed animal, anything that would say, it's okay to be an in-between. As a mother, I mourn the loss of the girl-child as much as I take pride in the emergence of the young woman.

Perhaps I should tell her about my doll.

Sidewalk Dreams

A story in the news really caught my attention today, and not because it was shocking or grisly, it was just a little story about a little girl, drawing her dreams.

Natalie Shea is a first-grader in New York. At 6, her world is wide open, her dreams can be outrageous because childhood is the time for outrageous dreams and there is beauty to be found everywhere. Natalie is an artist.

Natalie shared her dreams with friends and neighbors by drawing a big blue flower in chalk on her front stoop. Her mother was understandably surprised when she received a notice informing her that she had 45 days to remove the "graffiti" or face a $300 fine. Some neighbor had complained.

At 6, Natalie showed she had more sense than the complaining grown-up who obviously has lost the ability to see the beauty around her.

"My mom got a ticket for graffiti, and it wasn't even graffiti," Natalie said. "It was art, very nice art."

Her mother didn't have to worry about the fine, because as the mean-spirited neighbor should have realized would happen, the chalk "graffiti" disappeared with the next rainstorm.

I have, on occasion, bought my children sidewalk chalk and I must admit, even helped them cover the driveway with drawings, sayings and (as the hippy in me came out) peace signs and words like "groovy". The sad thing is that I have also wondered if my landlord would come along and object because sometimes I wonder if he can see what is really drawn there.

It reminded me of a snatch of a song I wrote a long time ago, I may have been a teen at the time. It is only a snatch because for better or worse (probably better), I don't remember the rest of it.

When we were young
Our songs were unsung
And we wrote our secrets
on the sidewalk
But you know chalk
Doesn't last very long
and come the dawn
We'd lost ourselves in the pictures we'd drawn

I pity the neighbor whose sight is so shortened by time that he or she no longer remembers or understands the worlds contained in a child's chalk art. The world must be a bleak place indeed when you have given up on the dreams of the child you were.

My Mother's Music

My mother always sang. She sang while she washed the dishes. She sang while she scrubbed the toilet. She sang while she sorted dirty clothes or ironed clean ones. My mother, with her lovely voice, filled the house with snatches of music. I say snatches, because my mother never knew all the words to any song. The surprising thing is that she only sang hymns.

One of the things passed down from her mother's house to ours was a Methodist hymnal from the days when my grandmother attended said church. I am almost sure she came by the hymnal legitimately and hadn't just pinched it from the back of the pew.

So I am confident that my mother had heard and sung all of these hymns hundreds of times in her life and as she attended church regularly, she had weekly practice. Still she never seemed to know any more than snatches of them. Her versions of songs were usually one or two lines, occasionally punctuated with "da da da" or "dum dee dum" to take the place of missing lyrics.

What we didn't always realize as children was that in addition to using musical "fillers" my mother often changed the words to songs. More than once I heard a hymn sung in church that I thought I knew well after hearing it so many times at home only to find out that it bore little resemblance to the song I had learned.

I guess my mother just liked things her own way, and as she sang to the Lord, she sang what came from her heart and not what came from the hymnal. She wasn't concerned about the missing words, she sang the bits she thought were important.

Of course, to this day I find it hard to sing "The Old Rugged Cross" without doing it in her style.

"On a hill, da dee dum.
Stood an old la da dee.."