Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving: this quiet holiday that falls between spooky, candy-filled Halloween and big, bright, present-filled Christmas is known for nothing but its food and its gentle reminder to be thankful. The Thanksgivings I remember most from growing up were spent around our laminated, oval dining room table, which was dressed up for the occasion with a heavy, freshly-ironed tablecloth and my mom's good dishes. There wasn't much fanfare to Thanksgiving at our house; it was just the six of us most of the time. My mom would build a log cabin out of Lincoln Logs and surround it with little pilgrim and Indian candles for the centerpiece, and the corner of the stereo cabinet held a wicker cornucopia filled with plastic fruit; that was about it as far as decorations went. As for holiday music, my mom would sing "Over the River and Through the Woods" as she made pies and fat turkey-shaped sugar cookies the day before Thanksgiving, and when we woke up on Thursday morning, she'd be in the kitchen humming "We Gather Together" as she stuffed the turkey and pared potatoes. We would eat early, then spend the rest of the day playing games and eating leftovers.  I'd like to be able to add "and giving thanks for food, shelter, and each other" to the end of the previous sentence, but in truth, we probably spent more time arguing over who would get the last Brown 'N Serve roll and squabbling over whose turn it was in Carrom than being thankful. And even worse, instead of being grateful for all the blessings we already had, my sister and brothers and I were mostly just biding our time on Thanksgiving afternoon, waiting for my mom to put the first Christmas record on the stereo. By Thanksgiving night, we were busy circling coveted items in the Sears and Penneys Christmas catalogs as we composed our extensive wish lists. Thanksgiving would just sort of slip away as we started getting ready for the "bigger and better" holiday. Over the years, though, Thanksgiving has become so much more than a gateway to Christmas for me. Christmas might be bigger, but bigger isn't always better. I've grown to love Thanksgiving's simplicity, its understated traditions and decorations, its identity as a holiday that celebrates being grateful. I like its slower pace and its tight focus: one day, one meal, one purpose--giving thanks. It doesn't seem to matter how early stores put up their Christmas displays or how many Black Friday promotions there are, because for me Thanksgiving stands tall and strong, unaffected and unassuming. I guess, in a way, Thanksgiving still plays a part in getting me ready for Christmas, not by bowing out of the way to give me time to work on my wish list, but by steadily reminding of how much I already have.

Birthdays

"This is how it is with your children, she thought. You hold all the versions of them there ever were simultaneously in your heart." --Sue Miller

The weekend before last, all three of our kids were home. The two from out of town arrived by surprise  Friday night. They had come to help us celebrate our birthdays. The surprise visit involved a lot of planning and texting (and lying), but they pulled it off. We were completely unsuspecting and thoroughly surprised. It was the perfect present: we laughed and talked and ate and played games. And what Sue Miller's character says in the above quote was so true. As we sat around the table at the restaurant or in the dining room playing cards, I'd watch these grown-up kids of mine signing credit card slips, giving advice about grad school and teaching, and sharing plans for the end-of-student-teaching gifts, and I would also see an eight-year-old perched on a counter stool making an elaborate cardboard-paper-glitter present, a seven-year-old playing school with his brother and all the stuffed animals, and a six-year-old saving money in a little safe in the corner of his bedroom. It happens all the time--you see a twinkle in an eye, a stubborn look on a face, a familiar habit or gesture, and in that instant, the past telescopes itself and you see all the versions of themselves your children have ever been. Today at 4:33, my oldest child will turn twenty-seven years old, and for the first time, my parenting years will outnumber my non-parenting years. For me, birthdays have always been a time for looking back, for remembering each age and stage, but lately they have also become a time for looking ahead, for imagining all the versions of my kids that are yet to be.

Happy Birthday, Ben!

It's November!

It's November, and that means it's time for turtlenecks and warm socks and flannel sheets, three of my favorite things. In our family, November also means birthdays--three of them. One of the first things Steve and I discovered about each other during my freshman year at Westminster was that we shared a birthday. It was an odd coincidence that maybe helped us together at first. And it was kind of fun when we were dating, but later on it started to feel a little less fun. You know how it is when you're a kid: your birthday is your special day. There's a present on your bedside table when you wake up, you get to take cupcakes to school, there are birthday cards in the mail when you get home, your mom makes your favorite dinner, and then there are more presents and more cake. For that one day in the year, you are celebrated. Granted, some of the birthday hoopla wanes with age, but your birthday is still your own special day every year--except when you share it with your husband. You might think a double birthday would mean double the celebration, but in our case, the two kind of cancelled each other out. Think about it: Who makes the cake? Who hangs balloons and streamers? Who plans a special dinner? It was hard for the kids, too, at least when they were younger--there was no parent to help them get ready for the other parent's birthday. So our joint-birthday always ended up feeling a little more like an anniversary. Fortunately, our first child joined our November birthday club. For a while, we thought he might arrive right on our birthday, but he took his time and claimed his very own special day. So although Steve and I don't usually eat cake on our birthday, we happily share Ben's a few days later. Over the years, I've slowly gotten used to sharing my birthday. In fact, sharing a birthday, especially a November birthday, seems to suit Steve and me. November, with its grays and browns and leftover yellows, is a subdued, understated month--tucked in there between bold, golden October and merry, red-and-green December. Steve and I, with our November-ish personalities, fit right in. I'm not sure how we'll celebrate our birthday this year--something quiet and subdued no doubt--but we'll do it together as we have for more than thirty years. And these days, I wouldn't want it any other way.

Halloween

I loved candy as a kid, and for me, Halloween was all about the candy.  In addition to the treats in my Halloween bag, our town had a Halloween parade every year; one year when my sister, brother, and I went as  Snap, Crackle, and Pop, we won a prize, but everyone who even entered the parade got a giant Hershey bar.  There were other good things about Halloween, too: pumpkin carving and a black and orange Halloween dinner at home--usually sloppy joes and carrot-raisin salad.  Some years there were parties with spooky decorations and bobbing for apples, although once I made the mistake of going as a cornstalk, and no one knew I was there.  But aside from that misstep, Halloween was pretty enjoyable, but even with all the candy, it was never my favorite holiday. When my kids were young, we had fun with costumes. The three of them were Captain Hook, Peter Pan, and Tinker Bell on Em's first Halloween. Another year the boys were Ice Miser and Heat Miser from The Year Without a Santa Claus and Em was Little Red Riding Hood thanks to her fascination with Into the Woods. The year we bought our house on Eagle Street, we had big Halloween costume party to thank the friends who had helped us move. When the kids got older, their costumes got less elaborate, and they didn't need us to take them trick-or-treating anymore. At the time I didn't feel too sad about letting go of that part of their childhoods; it was kind of a relief not to be sewing Halloween costumes at the height of the semester. And I'd never really liked the darker side of Halloween--all the blood and gore and zombies and horror that are part of the holiday. So I didn't think I'd miss celebrating Halloween when the kids were grown and gone. But I do. I feel a little melancholy during Halloween week when my only celebration is a homemade pumpkin spice latte and a handful of toasted pumpkin seeds. Last year, Steve and I didn't even carve our pumpkin, we just scooped the seeds out.  And we sure don't dress up in costumes to host or attend Halloween parties; we no longer play spooky sounds when we answer the door to the dozens of trick-or-treaters that flood Eagle Street. It makes me wonder, are we on our way to becoming like one of those old couples who lived on my old trick-or-treat route, the kind that handed out stale popcorn balls and mushy apples or pencils or dimes? Or even worse, the kind that turned off their porch light and pretended they weren't not home?  I'm pretty sure we won't, and here's why: I love buying Halloween candy. I choose my assortment carefully and shop early--that way Steve and I can nibble away at Almond Joys and Kit Kats, and Hershey bars for a couple of weeks before Halloween arrives. And even then, we are strategic in our distribution--we give out the Skittles and Nerds and Lifesaver Gummies first, saving the chocolate in case the trick-or-treater turnout is low, and we end up with leftovers.  So despite our lack of Halloween spirit, I think we're safe for now because, for us, Halloween is still all about the candy. Anybody want a peanut butter cup?

World Series

Every year when the World Series rolls around, I am transported back in time to the early 1970's when I was growing up just north of Pittsburgh.  I remember bringing my little green transistor radio along with me to piano lessons, so I could listen to the playoff game while my brother was taking his lesson. Our crabby piano teacher scoffed at me, but I sat out on her sunny cement patio and cheered on Roberto Clemente and the rest of the Pittsburgh Pirates. They won the World Series in 1971. The next year they lost the National League championship to Johnny Bench and the Cincinnati Reds (my younger brother's favorite player and team). Less than three months later, the Pirates and their fans lost something far worse than a championship. When Clemente's plane went down on New Year's Eve in 1972, I was stunned and heartbroken. I was twelve years old and hadn't yet had much experience with death, especially not with the kind of death that takes away a vibrant, healthy ballplayer in the prime of his life.  My diary entry for January 2 reads, "Dear Diary, The whole country mourns the famous Pittsburgh Pirate Roberto Clemente.  He died on a mission of mercy. Maybe someone could replace him as a great ballplayer but no one could replace him as a man . . . I hope no one ever wears Roberto's number again (21). I just can't believe he's dead."  Baseball was never the same for me after that. Oh, I cheered on the Pirates through the rest of the decade and celebrated when they won the World Series again in 1979.  But I never quite got over Clemente's death and the realization that bad things happen to good people even when they are in the midst of doing good things. I didn't like finding out what a scary and unpredictable place the world was. But maybe that's not the only lesson to be learned from Roberto Clemente's life and death; maybe the more important lesson is to make the most of the time you're given--play hard, take care of others, and leave behind a legacy of hope and goodwill.  So next year when the World Series rolls around, I'll be remembering Roberto and reminding myself to live a life that matters. And if the Pirates are playing, I'll be watching . . . 

School Lunches

Our little elementary school had no cafeteria, so if you weren't a "walker," you carried a lunch box, paid a nickel for a little carton of milk, and ate in the classroom. I had a Peanuts lunch box and matching thermos. In those days, thermoses had glass liners, so they didn't usually last as long as the lunch box; if you banged your lunch box around a little too much on the way to school, you'd find shards of broken glass mixed in with whatever you had in your thermos. Most days my lunch box contained a peanut butter sandwich wrapped neatly in waxed paper, but once in  a while I agreed to bologna on squishy white bread with Miracle Whip. In the days before blue ice cold packs, my mom froze water in an old Bactine bottle and tucked that into my lunch box in hopes of keeping my sandwich cool until lunchtime. To go with my sandwich and milk, I had fresh or canned fruit and something sweet for dessert--usually cookies, sometimes little cans of pudding, or if I was really lucky, a Hostess Ho-ho! I loved those little foil-wrapped rolls of chocolate cake and white filling. To make mine last longer, I peeled off the outside layer of chocolate and ate that first, then I carefully unrolled the cake and ate it as slowly as I could. Our elementary school was barely a block from our town's main street, and kids who had money and a note from home got to eat "over town" at the Amber Grill. Eating in town was a rare treat in our family since extra dollars for hamburgers, fries, and a vanilla coke were few and far between.  But every once in a great while, usually when my dad was in charge of the lunch packing for some reason, we would unwrap our sandwiches and see a woven potholder tucked between the two slices of bread along with a dollar and a note giving us permission to go to town for lunch. Part of the fun of eating over town was stopping at Kenny Wilson's candy store on the way back to school for a pack of Sprees or a strip of Zotz candy to keep in your desk and nibble on during the long afternoon hours. Field trip days usually called for bagged lunches (no lunch boxes), and I suppose I usually took my lunch in a plain brown paper bag with my name printed neatly on the front, just like everyone else did, but one time--maybe it was the year my grade got to go to Old Economy--my mom decorated the front of my bag with a garland of flowers.  I loved that bag, not just because it was pretty and festive, but because my busy mom took a few extra minutes to make something special for me to remind me she would be thinking of me when I was on my field trip. It was the same with finding a potholder sandwich and a dollar bill in my lunch box on days my dad was in charge of things. He could have just given us the dollars and notes in the morning, but instead he took a few extra minutes to do something only he would do and made a memory that would last a lifetime. Of course I didn't know it at the time, but those school lunches were doing more than filling my stomach--they were etching a lifelong place in my memory, and they were teaching me about the kind of parent I wanted to be.

Signs of Fall

Signs of fall are all around. It's moving-in weekend for SUNY Fredonia students, and the Fredonia Farm Festival is in full swing. Quiet summer nights have given way to the loud voices and late-night laughter of our new student-neighbors as they make their way home from house parties and bars. On my way to the farmers' market early this morning, I saw the tell-tale beer cans nestled in the grass and the first few colored leaves on the sidewalk. Although fall is my favorite season, these early signs of fall are bittersweet. If fall is coming, that means summer is ending. And the end of summer means our last child will be leaving for her last year of college. It means the house will soon feel too big, too quiet, and too empty. It means taking baby spinach and baby kale for green smoothies off my weekly shopping list and adding non-vegetarian entrees to our weekly menus. It means my girl won't be perched on the other couch doing her nails or making bracelets while we watch Mad About You or Gilmore Girls. It means I won't see her ponytail swinging as she heads out for a run. It means she won't be making us laugh at the dinner table or on the tennis court. It means we have to get used to being two again, instead of three or four or five. We've been sending kids off to college for nine years now, but somehow it never gets any easier. How can it? How can we stop missing our kids when they are not with us? My mom is eighty-one, and she still misses my sister, my brothers and me.  She treasures letters, phone calls, and visits and wishes they were all more frequent.  So maybe it's something you never really make peace with, you just handle it as gracefully as possible and keep your door and heart open.  For everything there is a season.