#Inktober52, #Inktober, "Bubbles"

I was hiking around to endless historical monuments on a hot, sunny day with a friend when I said, "I need to stop for a pop" as we walked by a convenience store.  My friend burst into merry laughter.  My face rearranged itself into absolute befuddlement.  I didn't see anything funny in my declaration.  I was hot and thirsty.  My friend didn't have the faintest idea what I was talking about.  "A Pepsi, Coke, something like that", I clarified, shaking my head at the obvious.  "Oh!  A soda!"  In my mind, a soda is something from the 1950's when teenyboppers went to the soda shop for a malt, but okay.  I realize more of you out there say soda than pop, but you have to admit pop is a better word when you open the bottle.

Someone else recently reminisced with me about going to her grandparents and getting pop from the basement.  "Me too!"  Happy grandparent stories flowed back and forth and I vividly tasted Vernor's ginger ale even though I haven't tasted it in years.  It's amazing how these things stay with us, and how much little things matter down the road when it didn't seem to make that much difference at the time.  We just had practical grandparents who put soda pop in the basement because the basement was cool and brought it upstairs when the grandkids were there because they loved us.  It's these little moments that made us feel special and secure.

The other day I contemplated what to have for supper.  I seem to have gotten very vegetarian during the shutdown and I have to say I'm sick and tired of vegetables.  I flashed back to dinner at Grandma's and wished so strongly for one of her basic meals of ham, mashed potatoes, and green beans.  I wanted it so badly I could smell the ham and hear her putting a spoon down on her stainless steel kitchen counter.  I thought of Grandpa and his perennial assortment of Chex cereal and ever-present vanilla ice milk.  Tinkling dishes, cheerful laughter, and ice tea.  Vernor's pop, full of sugar and bubbles, in the middle of the day, for no real reason other than my grandparents knew I liked it.

I saw a post where a 10-year-old girl created a door screen out of a shower curtain and plastic bags so she could hug her grandma during the shutdown.  Yay for the kid!  But gee, it sucks to be separated from your grandma!  Maybe all this separation will prove to teach more of us to appreciate people while we have them?

Happy memories keep us warm inside when faced with too many vegetables, but it isn't all about looking back.  It's about thinking about your priorities and making decisions about what you want now and in the future.  Our thoughts create possibilities.

Thinking about drinking a bubbly pop on a hot summer day may not seem important at all.  Remembering merry laughter between friends is important.  It isn't about things, it's about people.  I'm really hoping that everyone appreciates their people even more when they can hug each other again.

This art is just a TV doodle around the time I was salivating over Grandma's ham :)

"Family 2"

Someone asked me recently about my happiest Christmas.  I got an image of my brain as a Rolodex of memory index cards spinning around until it landed on a happy day of childhood at my grandparents' house.  We didn't usually go to their house for Christmas, but that year we did.  There was a lit up tree in the dining room decorated with fragile glass ornaments.  Some of the lights bubbled.  My cousins ran around and yelled as they played.  Aunts chatted in the kitchen.  Uncles chatted in the living room.  Dinner was perfect.  Everyone was happy.  I was happy.

One of the pleasures of going to Grandma's was after the meal was done.  Women whisked the dishes into the kitchen and men took the children to the nearby park where we burned off our excess energy and cookies.  In winter, the pond was frozen over and there was a hot fire going nearby.  People warmed their hands and laughed.  Sometimes we walked to the other end of the park with the big sledding hill where there was another big fire burning.  Up the hill, down the hill... repeat until bruised and exhausted.  Trudge our way back to Grandma's where the dishes were miraculously clean and put away.

We played cards and drank hot tea.  We had sandwiches made from leftovers and ate more cookies.  Grandma filled us all in on the extended family whom I probably never met, or maybe died 3 or 4 generations ago.  The patter of the conversation didn't matter much to me.  I just liked listening to the pleasantness of it with the tinkling of a metal spoon clinking as someone stirred sugar in their tea.  The creaking of Grandpa's oak rocking chair, his soft huh, huh chuckle when something struck him funny.  "Santa Got Run Over by a Reindeer" playing somewhere upstairs.

My wish is for every child to have a perfect holiday, whatever their religion.  I hope they are safe and loved and they feel a sense of belonging amongst the people around them.  I hope older people feel treasured by the younger generations.

Of course, I also know my happy wishes won't come true for everyone.  For some, the mashed potatoes might fly across the room or somebody pounds the table.  Some people are lonely because they don't have anyone around anymore.  For them, I wish a perfect memory of happiness that keeps them warm when things aren't like a perfect day at Grandma's.

It wasn't that my grandparents did anything so remarkable back then.  I got a small gift I don't remember anymore.  The food was great, but it wasn't gourmet fare.  It was probably a turkey, mashed potatoes, and green beans or something -- oh yeah, let's not forget the ever-present applesauce!  Pretty little dishes with pickles and olives and nuts and whatever else scattered around the table.  Talking about unknown relatives isn't exactly thrilling.  Playing cards is pretty cheap entertainment.  It's just that when all these things were combined it was magic.

Or, maybe the point of it was my own perspective?  Happiness isn't something someone can force on you.  We choose it.  Wherever you are, whoever you're with, whatever life gives you, I hope you find joy and happiness this holiday season!

"Yarn"

I poked around in Grandma's stuff once and found a bunch of bobbins.  In the classic "what, why, how, show me!" way of children, I pestered her until she showed me how it all worked -- reluctantly, miserably, and demonstrating the definition of antipathy, she made some lace at my bequest on the special lap pillow with a project started and long discarded in the closet.  Grandma moved the bobbins around and pinned threads back while twisting and knotting things until my outspoken sister stated the obvious, "This is SO boring!"

We gave it up and made a pie instead which made everyone happy.

Tatting shuttle & lace

I inherited Grandma's dislike for such hobbies and love of pie.  Both of us preferred to crochet if we got out yarn.  Yet, I have her tatting shuttles and my heart feels warm that she humored me that day.  (Lace making by tatting is a bit more like crocheting.)

Not Grandma's hands, but this shows how lace is made

Lace was a way of showing status a long time ago.  Anybody who had the leisure time to make it wasn't worried about how to pay the rent.  Anyone who could buy it had extra money to spend.  Lace collars were popular, lace on pillowcases, lace on the arms of chairs... they put lace on everything.  And sadly, a lot of it ended up at the garage sale for a quarter, or "go ahead and fill a bag for a dollar!"

Tatted doily on my table

I've gotten a lot of doilies and lace from old ladies at garage sales.  I have exactly one on display on a table under a glass.  The others are boxed up and waiting for someone to love them in a different generation.  Having seen Grandma demonstrate the hideously tedious process, I feel for the women who made these things.  I'm supposing that some of these ladies might've enjoyed it, the same way some crazy women like to knit, but I just appreciate the amount of labor they put into making the beautiful lace designs.

The lynx on scratchboard took a year of my life to create.  About 2/3 of the way through, I started really resenting it.  I didn't feel like I could start a new project until I finished it, and the amount of work to finish it seemed insurmountable.  I finally said "screw it!" and just completed it, but I wasn't so perfect anymore.  I had it done within a week or two, and I don't think anyone can tell which parts I did fast and which I bled over.  In fact, I think the less labored parts are better.  That's a lesson I've carried with me.

The lynx hangs in my house.  I described to a friend the pain of creating it, and he called it "wampum", which is highly valued beadwork Native Americans made from shell.  The true value of it was in the labor it took to create.  Indians had to find the shells, sand them into beads, drill holes (without metal drills, and having to make the drills they used), and then they stitched them together for the final product.  It took many hands many hours.

Ever after that conversation with my friend, I see the wampum in certain things.  Hand-made lace is one of those things.  Painstaking art is another.  I think the world would be better if more value was placed on the wampum ideal.  In the meantime, I'll keep rescuing lace.

"Home"

I wrote about my house last week.  Maybe I should’ve talked about it as “home”?  It’s definitely lived in.  I have great plans to clean it this weekend too.  I’ll see what actually gets done by Monday.

I don’t know if I think of my house as my home most of the time.  This is where I live and keep all my stuff.  Having lived here a long time, I do have memories of cooking holiday dinners for family, puppies piddling on my floors, my little brothers curled up on the couch watching Disney movies – back when they were actually little and still cuddled up to each other.

I had a deep need for a home when I was a young adult, maybe a deeper need than any of my peers.  I need a place that’s mine, a place to rest between my interactions with the world.  A friend of mine always wants to travel and views his apartment as a place to be in between trips.  We’re at opposite sides of a spectrum – but he relishes his trips to his sister’s house during holidays.  That gives him enough of a center.  We all need a safe place where we belong, even if it’s not our own place.

My grandparents provided that kind of oasis.  In a discussion with my siblings, all of us said we felt loved, and none of us claimed that we felt loved more than anyone else.  The kitchen always smelled of good things, and Grandpa gave us ice cream and Vernor’s.  The rules were clear and sane, and we were encouraged to play.

We played Rook at the dining room table in the evenings, which according to Wikipedia is a card game “played with a specialized deck of cards. Sometimes referred to as "Christian cards" or "missionary poker"… introduced by Parker Brothers in 1906 as an alternative for those in the Puritan tradition or Mennonite culture who considered face cards in a regular deck inappropriate because of their association with gambling and cartomancy."

Well, I learn new things every day.  It makes perfect sense though.  Grandma was from an area of Ohio with a lot of Amish and Mennonites.  Even though she wasn’t one of them, she was pretty straight-laced Christian, though not in any kind of irritating way.

Anyway, the quiet evenings of pleasant cards and tea is a part of my life, a place where I felt home.  The candy dish was always full, my uncle always had new projects to try, and the sheets on the bed were always crisp and soft.  The soap smelled of roses and the quiet rustle of fabric was loud in the quiet.  I can still hear Grandma laughing and Grandpa chuckling.

“Over the river and through the woods, to Gramma’s house we go!” And the long drive we took every month passed quickly enough because we knew the drive was worth it.

Whatever your beliefs, wherever you’re going during the holidays, I wish for you a place that you find special with people you love.  And if you can’t have these things this year, may you have memories that keep you warm.

Merry Christmas!