Revisiting the Past

It’s been a wild week. Or two. Or three. First, we are currently in San Diego, and have been for nearly two months. We have reconnected with friends here, taken a side trip to Pasadena for the antiquarian book fair, as well as for a lovely stay at the Langham Hotel there. We have had visitors from Tucson (dear daughter and her family) and from back east (my sister and brother-in-law), and visited a few of the can’t-miss local attractions: the zoo and the Scripps Aquarium and Cabrillo Point. We have spoken with our yard maintenance guys (yet another personnel turnover) and our superstar cleaning lady, Magda. We have seen a play, dined at any number of fine restaurants, including the great ones just a block or two away, visited our favorite local book sale, and enjoyed the everyday sunshine here, as opposed to the gloom of an east coast winter. We have also endured an extremely unnecessary and inconvenient bout of coughs and colds (introduced by our visitors) but are on the mend after some serious antibiotic regimens. And we flew to Tucson for...well, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, to spend some time with our daughter, our granddaughters, and Paul. Then, a first visit to Tucson’s annual Gem Show. Then (and probably of equal importance) a reunion with some cousins I’d lost track of for over 50 years. 

 

Some people might wonder how one loses cousins for that long, and all I can say is that those people might not have large families. My mom was the oldest of nine children, and that fact means that I have approximately 45 first cousins and god-alone-knows-how-many seconds and thirds and once and twice removed are wandering around out there. And that’s just my grandmother’s side of the family. There are reunions, but it’s impossible to round up everyone. Last time I remember attending, the volunteer fire department came out to the park and barbecued chicken; someone lined us up on the hill near the softball field and took a picture. I think we counted 135 people—and there were a lot missing.  

 

So, to start with, the two cousins under discussion were the sons of my mother’s younger brother, John. He died of leukemia at approximately the age of 40, leaving behind a wife and five children: John, Tom, Chap, Beth, and Anita. John and Anita stayed in Pennsylvania. Beth ended up in Houston, Tom in Wyoming, and Chap..in Thailand. This past year, I heard (from his sister, Beth, on Facebook) that Chap comes back to the states—in fact, to Tucson—for the Gem Show there in late January/early February each year. And that Tom now lives outside Tucson, and that Chap and his wife stay with them for the show. MY connection with Tucson is our daughter, Kay, and her family. So I started communicating, and arranged to meet up with Tom and his wife, Sue, and Chap and his Thai wife, Mam. Breakfast. Saturday at 8 am. We were given the number and location of Chap’s booth at the Gem Show as well. 

Reunions can be iffy. When my uncle John died, Tom and Chap were packed off to the Milton Hershey School in Hershey, PA. Mr. Hershey had founded a school for orphaned boys where they received room and board and education—including college, if they were so inclined. They were thus never there when we visited Dallastown, and pretty much ceased to exist in our world, except for mentions in letters. My aunt Cass remarried and moved away to New York, so even that touchpoint disappeared. In any case, here we were, virtual strangers, meeting up after 55 years, and attempting to fill in the gaps between. Would we even recognize each other? Would we have anything to talk about? Are family ties strong enough to survive that level of separation? The answer is an unqualified “yes”. 

I stopped by Chap’s booth on Friday morning. He knew me instantly—and I, him. The Riedel boys are all short and bald. No mistaking Chap for anyone else in his booth. We talked and we met his lovely wife, Mam. He filled in a few gaps—such as how he went from selling tractors in Pennsylvania (!!) to dealing in gems, polishing and designing and selling them in Thailand. He left us still wondering about the hows and whys of all his travels. He seems to have been everywhere and done everything. Amazing. 

Then, on Saturday, when we arrived at the restaurant, Tom was even more recognizable: he looked exactly like his dad. And he had also inherited the taciturn nature of the Riedels. A man of few words, he was seated next to JC and may have uttered 6 words during the course of breakfast, and most of those were used to place his order. Fortunately, his wife was more voluble. And his brother, as well. I’d brought a few old pictures, and offered to send a letter (45 pages worth) that my mom had written Kay for a school project, describing what life was like when she was 8 years old. Needless to say, much of that narrative included her brother John and all that they did as kids. 

We talked about the farm where our early reunions occurred. They had lived there and remembered most of what I could dredge up about the place. My grandmother’s sugar cakes were remembered as fondly as I remembered them—and for pretty much the same reason: she always had a Charles Chips can full of them for any stray grandchild that wandered in—tucked away under the sink where we all knew they were. And could snitch a couple, unobserved. I still don’t know if they tasted so good just because they were stolen... 

We talked about food at the reunions—because that’s what those gatherings were all about. My grandma’s devil’s food cake with peanut butter between the layers and white icing streaked with bittersweet chocolate. Her lemon pie, which always had some undetectable flaw (according to her). Aunt Carrie’s banana cake. Chicken corn soup. Swimming in the pond. Going to the barn to see what seemed to be an acre of yellow, fluffy chicks. Watching my cousins ride the big hogs, that squealed and trotted around the barnyard. My uncle killing chickens—and yes, they really DO run around wildly with their heads cut off. Could we find anything to talk about? Oh, yes. 

Have I mentioned that my uncles are not big talkers? And that Tom is the same? Neither is ANYONE in that family demonstrative in the least. I can’t remember ever even hugging my grandma, much less an uncle or aunt. The women cooked and cleaned and the men worked and played horseshoes when they got together. “Monosyllabic” defines the Riedel men.  

And yet. And yet. When we vacated our table and gathered outside for goodbyes, Tom came over to me, arms outstretched for a hug. And said, “Thank you for coming.” Chap brought boxes of jewels to Tucson; we bought a few pieces from him, but the treasure I took home was that hug, and that ‘thank you’.  

A hug and a four-word sentence from a Riedel. Beyond price. 

Past and Present

This must be my month for remembering. In the past month, I've reconnected with cousins I had not seen in 50+ years, touched base (and scheduled a lunch) with a friend who I've missed for about five years, and received a phone call from a friend from elementary school (and college) who was calling to drum up support for our 50th reunion. What is this--connect-with-Mary month?

I am not one for backward looks--which probably explains these gaps in the first place. If I don't hear from someone, I may make a few efforts--but if none bear fruit, I move on. And sometimes forget to try again later.

I have already written about my cousins. The second encounter is a little fraught, and I will wait to write about that reunion, but--my college reunion is fair game.

I've known Liz since fifth grade. We both went to St. Anthony's School, endured the same scary nuns, knew a lot of the same kids, remember embarrassing facts about them (did I ever tell anyone about John Frankenberger in first grade?) and probably both hope that we've forgotten the ones about each other. We knew who the bad kids were, and who the good kids were, and how to be counted among the latter (for we both were good little Catholic girls..) We missed each other's high school years, attending rival girls' high schools, but met up again in college at Mt. St. Agnes. In fact, she rode to school with me several days a week because it helped with the gas money for my poor Rambler American, which needed all the help it could get.

She called me today out of the blue; I suppose it was to recruit me for the reunion in April (for which she was hosting the pre-party), but I don't think we ever got around to why she called.  It wasn't really necessary, since my reservations were already made, and I'd spoken to others on the committee. But call she did, saying she'd called me first because she knew me the longest. Absolutely true. I count our connection at about 62 years, give or take. You can only imagine how much catching up we had to do: the what-ever-happened-tos and where-are-they-nows and have-you-heard-abouts. Not to mention the old stories about third grade teachers and much-loved college professors. We talked for over an hour about families and what we were doing and had done and how our experiences had intersected over the years...or didn't. We ranged from lacrosse (a boy we knew who played lacrosse before anyone even knew what the sport was in Baltimore) to those friends who had passed on or disappeared from view,  to teachers we'd shared (and feared), to her family's business (the much-beloved Woodlea Bakery, where everyone went for their doughnuts on Sunday morning after church--and their cheesecake whenever they were lucky enough to get it), to my sojourn in California, to hers in Pennsylvania, to brothers and sisters and their adventures...To say we traveled far and wide was an understatement. Two-thirds of a lifetime to reconstruct: a daunting morning's work.

It was great fun, and a great reminder of our own good fortune, in spite of a few blips along the way. It really is a good life. Thanks, Lizzie, for making me remember.

Claire's Dragon

When Claire was just a little tot,

when Christmas came, she was asked (a lot!)

“Now what do you wish for Santa to bring?”

Time and again, she said not a thing,

for Claire was quite shy and reluctant to speak.

But the questions continued for week upon week.

Finally, tired of the long inquisition,

she screwed up her courage,

and took a position.

She whispered to Santa in a soft, quiet voice

finally, finally, her toy of choice.

She said, “If you could, sir, a little red wagon..”

But Santa misheard, and thought she said “dragon”!

Now Claire had forever wanted a pet,

but somehow or other, had found none quite yet:

dogs were too common, gerbils too scurry-ing,

giraffes were too tall, and mice were too hurry-ing.

Fish weren’t too snuggly, and rabbits too shy,

hedgehogs were prickly, and bears? Well, oh, my!

There just didn’t seem to be anywhere

a pet who would be oh-so-perfect for Claire.

  

So, on Christmas morning, it was quite a surprise

when Claire grabbed her stocking (quite small for her size)

and found in the toe, almost too small to note,

an egg and, attached, from Santa, a quote:

“Keep this egg warm, and soon it will hatch

a pet, just for you, that will be up-to-scratch.”

Said Claire, “I think Santa must not have been listening.

A pet would be nice, but was not of my wishing.”

But like the dutiful child that she was,

she found it a pillow and blanket because

no one –says Santa—should be out in the cold;

one takes what one gets, and does what one’s told.

The egg, for a week, did nothing but sit,

and Claire, now discouraged, forgot about it.

But, one morning, she heard just the tiniest sound:

a tap, then a crack, then a crunch, and she found

a tiny red lizard: her egg, newly-hatched.

He grumbled, he wiggled, he stretched and he scratched.

Claire’s wide eyes grew wider as suddenly, he

breathed faster and faster until finally,

like a candle, he sputtered and shot forth a flame

that died quick as lightning, as fast as it came.

He looked all around him with curious stare;

the dragon was puzzled, and so, too, was Claire.

Where did it come from, this fire, this spark?

And while it was handy to have in the dark,

breathing fire and flame could bring nothing but trouble—

for Claire and her dragon, the trouble was double!

But she bundled him up and said to herself,

“He must be quite hungry. Now, what’s on the shelf?”

She found him some fruit and a cracker or four,

then some cheese, and some hot dogs—and then she got more!

This dragon was actually smaller than small,

but he ate just as if he were fifteen feet tall!

He ate and he grew, and he grew and he ate.

He grew into the yard and out through the gate,

What’s worse is that while he got bigger and bigger

his fire-breath also was growing—with vigor!

He snuffed and he snorted, but, oh! when he sneezed,

Claire ran for cover, and Mom was not pleased!

In fact, she was ready to show him the door,

but he’d burned it to cinders

when he started to snore.

 All that to one side, he’d become rather tame

and Claire had decided to give him a name.

Sparky? or Blaze? or Fireball? Red?

The names were all spinning around in her head.

She tried them all out and finally said,

“What about ‘Rufus’?”, and he turned his head.

I swear that he smiled, and looked deep in her eyes

and nodded approval, much to her surprise.

“Then, Rufus it is! And Rufus you’ll be!”

she shouted out loud, as happy as he.

Rufus now measured near 10 feet (or more)

and Claire even could ride him when she went to the store.

She clambered on up to his red wing-ed shoulder

And hung on his neck as he flew high and told her:

“Watch out when we land! It just might be rough!”

But Claire curled up tight and stayed safe enough.

He waited outside, and he carried her bag

gripped tight in his claw, and his tail even wagged!

She took him to school, and the kids were all jealous;

They took him to recess, and he toasted marshmallows

for s’mores on the schoolyard—of course he brought chocolate!

and graham crackers too, in a small dragon-pocket.

Claire loved him dearly, but, as you might surmise,

he was hard to manage in a house of this size.

So, when Christmas-time came, and Santa grew near,

Claire crept up quite close and, right in his ear,

she whispered quite sadly, “Santa, please, could you find

a nice home for Rufus? He’s friendly, he’s kind—

He’s just far too big for one child to care for..”

And Santa leapt up and said, “That’s what I’m here for!!

It seems the North Pole is so terribly cold,

that we need extra heat—or so I am told.

Instead of depending on weak North Pole sun,

we need an auxiliary furnace of one."

So Rufus flew off with the reindeer that year

to live at the North Pole, but, every year,

when Santa comes ‘round, and Christmas is nigh,

Rufus comes to see Claire, and they fly through the sky...

because they are friends, and friends always stay,

as do Rufus and Claire, to this very day.

The End.

Love and Cinnamon

I was making a cobbler..

apple, of course.

There are always apples;

an everyday fruit, made wonderful

by combination

with other everyday stuff:

flour, butter, love, and cinnamon—

I was peeling apples...

stroking peel into the sink:

red coins of apple skin,

piled in the white enamel sink.

A snapshot, a moment, a vignette—

enough to make me pause, to take note of 

the quotidian art in an apple peel, blending

the common with the commonplace.

Love and cinnamon, love and anything,

creating something wonderful. 

Magic Spells

I don’t know why it happens, or how—just that it does. Maybe it’s a left-over from my poet laureate days when I wrote ‘occasional poems’ (otherwise known as ‘poems -to-order’—you know, the kind they told me I’d never have to do?) Give me an occasion or event, and I’m there with a poem, fresh off the laptop. I have poems for everything from birthdays to new houses, from weddings to funerals, from high school dedications to adoption days, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, and everything in between.  Maybe I should pack it all in and write greeting cards for people who can’t find the words. It seems I am good at that. Back to the question: what and why and how. I don’t know. Maybe it’s magic. People read what I write and understand. And are sometimes moved. 

Those same people have asked how I write; how I think up my metaphors; how I choose words; how I sit down with a blank sheet of paper and put it all together. There is no true answer here. It happens. But when I think about it, it’s a little like music. I recently saw the play “Amadeus” and, if you look at the play as a meditation on creativity, you realize that Mozart’s genius was a gift. One that baffled and angered Salieri. Mozart wasn’t a person to be admired; he didn’t deserve it, but--through no fault of his own-- he had the gift. He could hear music in his head and record it on paper or perform it on the piano. Ask him how the magic worked? He couldn’t tell you. It was either right--or not. 

To a far lesser degree, that’s what poetry is for me. I’ve always been a good speller—not because I studied, but because I just knew. A word looked right, or it didn’t. In poetry, the words sound right, or they don’t. If they don’t, I have to change them around until they do. That is emphatically not a teachable skill. Particularly if you subscribe to the idea of free verse. You can force a rhyme, but it’s not going to sound right. Better to make up a word that fits, a la Ogden Nash, than to cram three syllables into a two-syllable space just to make it rhyme. How can that be explained to someone who doesn’t hear the discordant ‘CLANG!’ that produces? How do you acquire an ear for poetry, or an eye for art, or a feel for people’s emotions? If you listen to music, if you study art, if you read and recite poetry, you can appreciate it, you can approximate it, but you can’t quite get inside it, inside the seemingly effortless bubble that appears to exist around the born-to-it musician, artist, writer, or poet. Magic.

Sculptors can see the object in a block of stone. Mozart heard instinctively where the notes should be. An artist can visualize the lines and light and shadows in a composition. A poet can see, and hear, and feel the texture and emotion of the words, and arrange them for maximum effect. And can tell when they are right--or not. You can tell that a poem is good if you feel it, if it pulls an emotion out of you, or wakens an echo somewhere inside. I recite things in the car; I talk them through with myself; I read aloud and rearrange the lines on the page--sometimes months after I write them. Sometimes I throw things out.

I just received an email from a friend who had sent one of my poems to a friend whose husband had just died. She said her friend asked her to read it at the funeral service, and she wanted my permission to do so. Of course. Of course. Betsy doesn’t email; Betsy doesn’t text. Where she got my poem, I have no idea. Maybe she’s a secret Facebook stalker. But for this poem, she emailed me. It touched her and she passed it along to her friend. Another piece of magic.

And here I am, three thousand miles away, totally flummoxed.  I wrote a poem about a friend who had passed on months ago, and somehow arranged my imperfect words in a pattern that spoke to someone I’ve never met. I put words on paper and they say an inexplicable something that offers some version of comfort to a stranger. 

If that’s not magic, I’m not sure what is.