Filling a Memory Box

When I die, I'm going to come back as a squirrel.

That's right.

See, I have a habit of storing things away, tucking them into unexpected places, especially if those things bring back happy memories.

Yesterday, I was sorting through boxes of stuff, choosing items to give away, others to toss, and some to savor. These things (above) are definitely in my "To Keep" file. In fact, I think I'll give them a special box, a "Memory Box."

1. Upper left (clockwise) is a cute plastic hold-all pouch that my sister, Jane, gave me to remind me of my home on the beach.

2. Upper right (1 o'clock position) is a clothing brush that belonged to Grandma Marge. I don't recall her ever using it, but it reminds me of her anyway because of the whimsical face painted on the handle. By the way, this brush does come in handy for dusting off the shoulders of jackets that have been sitting too long in your closet.

3. Lower right (4 o'clock position) is a necklace given to me by Aunt Phyllis, a lovely and fashionable woman who lives on the Miracle Mile in Chicago. She and Uncle Manny always attended swanky events, so she thought a pretty bauble like this would be a good addition to my dressy wardrobe. And she was right!

4. Lower left (7 o'clock position) is a Chairman Mao watch that I bought in China. It tickles me that he was so very much against capitalism, and yet his image appears on this touristy trinket. When it works (which isn't often), Mao waves at you. This timepiece (ha!) both reminds me of a great trip and a piece of wisdom: Everything changes.

5. Right (9 o'clock position) is a pin, a magnolia painted on wood. I bought it in Charleston, SC. With it comes happy memories (and one sad one) of our times in that lovely city.

6. Middle of the grouping. Of all these possessions, this one means the most to me. My maternal grandmother, Constantia Funk, always carried her money in this plastic coin purse. When I look at this, I still see her bandaged fingers fumbling for change. As she aged, calcium deposits caused lumps on her fingertips. Bit by bit, as I stare at this purse, she comes back to life for me, almost the way a ghost materializes in a movie.

I challenge each of you to find a selection of tokens that revive happy memories--and put tuck them away in a Memory Box.

Girls Night Out

Before I moved to Florida, our house fairly hummed with testosterone. My son and husband commandeered the TV on weekends, watching sports together. They talked about poker. I spoiled them both, and happily so, by doing most of the cooking. Without other family around, the guys outnumbered me, so they really set the agenda--and that was fine.

But everything changes, doesn't it? And happily so, for the most part.

One reason we bought a home here is that I'm ten miles away from my two sisters and my four nieces. Tonight I my sisters (Jane and Meg), my brother-in-law (Mike), and three nieces (Katigan, Makenna and Grace) came over for dinner. I marinated the meat. The girls helped chop the veggies for kabobs and load it on skewers. They mixed the salad. Mike was designated "Grill God" for the evening, so he did the cooking. We sat down at the table for a great meal--and then his beeper went off and he was called into work at the hospital.

That left "just us girls."

All of us chattered and worked together to pick up the mess. Then Meg announced she had something to show me. She and Mike had found my aunt's old projector while cleaning out their garage.

Meg set it up, projected the image on my wall, and we watched an old 8 mm tape that must have been made almost 40 years ago! It makes me sad to think that Kodak is having trouble these days, because this puppy still works--and it was like a magic lantern illuminating the past. (By the way, do you remember the sound and smell of these? Trust me, it's distinctive.)

In it, my mom wore big sunglasses and waved to the camera as she walked to our car. Jane and I also walked to the car, then I turned and went back for Meg, reappearing with her on my shoulders. Even without sound, you can see how much we sisters relied on each other.

Of all the gifts my parents gave me, the best by far was my sisters.

Meister Eckhart has been credited with saying, "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice."

Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Thanksgiving Memories

I am the oldest of six children, so my memories of Thanksgiving tend to be jumbles of noise and children, both from when I and my siblings were youngsters and later, when they brought their own youngsters to the feast. The sheer exuberance of those times are golden sparkles in my memory. I remember one time going to Marshall, Illinois, to have Thanksgiving with Aunt Mamie, Uncle Paul, and a set of aunts, uncle and cousins, some of whom I had never met. There must have been forty people in that house! I remember it because I got to sit at the grown ups' table, a gratifying experience, even if most of the talk was about crops and canning -- they were mostly farmers on that side of the family.

But there is one exception to those times. I was working a killer job, full of stress, and trying to go to college in the evenings as well. Thanksgiving came on the horizon and suddenly I couldn’t face the racket. I begged off and spent the day alone in my apartment half a state away from my sister Therese’s house, where the others gathered. It seemed everyone else in the building had a home to go to for their feast, so it was really quiet. I had somewhere found a half of a turkey breast, so I roasted that, and made a salad and baked a single potato. I found a great old movie on television and watched that. I read a favorite book. I was so grateful for the peace and quiet, I felt no guilt at staying away from the home gathering, and returned to work refreshed and renewed. It was and remains one of my favorite Thanksgiving memories.

This year I am celebrating Thanksgiving twice. Once today, a day early, and again tomorrow, on the actual day. The early Thanksgiving started some years back when a dear friend of mine and my husband’s complained to us that he had to go home to his raucous family, at that time full of ructions and quarrels, for Thanksgiving dinner. He asked us what we were doing, and I said I was roasting the smallest turkey I could find (we LOVE leftovers!), then lighting a fire in the fireplace and settling down with favorite books. He said immediately, “Can I come?” We changed our plans to celebrate Thanksgiving a day early so he could store up the peace and quiet before facing the noisy Thanksgiving. He liked it so much that we continued the custom even after his family stopped marking the holiday by shouting at one another across the dinner table. One year my sister-in-law called to ask if we were holding early Thanksgiving and asked if she could come. She had been caught in the middle of one of those family quarrels whose terms seemed to be, “If she’s coming, then I’m not cooking.” All Margaret wanted was a slice of turkey. We told her she was welcome. After a hiatus of several years, we’re doing it again -- we agreed to do it before we got the invitation to a regular Thanksgiving meal with my husband’s family.

This year we’ll have three guests, all seeking something quiet. We’re in our new place and we don’t have a fireplace. But I bought one of those imitation wood-burning stoves with the fake fire for my office and I may haul it out into the living room to create a little nostalgia.

One dish I’m serving is Aunt Velva’s Bean Salad, which I only make twice a year because it’s so fattening.

Two cans of dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
One small onion, chopped
Four or five little sweet gherkins, sliced into rounds
Two hard boiled eggs, chopped

Mix these ingredients in a bowl and make the dressing:

One-quarter cup cider vinegar
One-half cup sugar
One cup sour cream

Blend well and pour over the bean mixture. Stir. This tastes especially good if you make it the day before and let it marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

Have a Happy, Joyous Thanksgiving

Everyday Is Mother's Day Memory Questions

(Clockwise from 12 o'clock position: me, Meg, Mom, and Jane.)

I'm a little late with this post because my plane didn't get in last night until after midnight. I flew from Miami to St. Louis after visiting with my mother and sisters, and I was pretty zonked!

People often compliment me by saying, "You are so creative." But really, I'm just one of the four creative women in my family. My mom was a classically trained ballerina, and she's always been a whiz at choreography and coming up with dance ideas. My younger sister Jane has done bead-work for earrings, runs her own blog (SleepCompass.com) and loves to decorate, and my youngest sister Meg is an art teacher at an elementary school, plus a font of all sorts of crafty ideas. Meg taught me to scrapbook. All of us are, in my humble opinion, amazing in our own ways, perhaps because whatever one of us doesn't think up the other surely will.

So Meg got this middle-of-the-night idea. She wrote out these questions for all of us to answer when we went to brunch on my final day in Florida:

Meg's Mother's Day Memory Questions

1. Using your 5 sense, what are some memories you recall from growing up:

* Touch

* Taste

* Smell

* Hearing

* Sight

2. Name 1 thing your mother taught you--

3. Name 1 thing you'd thank her for--

4. Name 1 thing you really appreciate that she did for you--

5. Write a quote your mother often says:

6. Describe a memorable event or trip:

Over brunch, we filled out the questionnaire. The answers led to many great memories, and lots of laughter. I asked Meg for a copy of all our responses, and she suggested I take some blanks home. I plan to have my son and my husband fill these out. Jane thought she should have her mother-in-law and daughter fill them out, too. I think it'll be a pretty interesting family map, defining continents of interests, seas of shared values, and mountains of memorable moments.

So, I'd like to hear what YOU think about the quiz. And whether you try it with your family.

P.S. As I flipped over the papers, while I was copying the questions for this blog, I discovered Meg's answer to "Name 1 thing you'd thank her (your mother) for--" and somehow, I'd forgotten or hadn't heard this over our meal. Meg's answer was, "My sisters."

The Place Where We Were a Family

This week the “For Sale” sign went up in our front yard. A small caveat, “Coming Soon!”, warned folks we aren’t quite ready for prime time and looky-lou’s. What a bittersweet time this is. My son is home from college, leaving half-empty bottles of Gatorade around the house, getting calls at all hours, and constantly asking what there is to eat. My husband is distracted by phone calls from real estate agents, vendors, music institutes, and would-be employees. My sisters phone me with news about my mother’s tests, indicating she has cancer of her lungs, and how we are in a holding pattern until the doctors test her (some more) to decide how to proceed. I sit for hours winnowing through boxes of old documents, speeches I wrote for the executives of Diamond-Star Motors, ad copy I created, ad campaigns and focus groups that I ran, and bits of books and articles which never went anywhere.

On Saturday, David and I finished cleaning our newly remodeled garage. First I photographed the growth chart we made with black marker on one wall. We used that space to note Michael’s first bubble with bubblegum, the one and only baseball game his team won, and finally, “College Bound” which we stopped the car to add the day we set off to take him to school. Grumbling, he agreed to be pulled from the backseat, to stand against the wall, and to be measured against other years’ growth.

The next occupants of this house will find a freshly re-done garage, now insulated, dry-walled and with a painted floor. Plus a new built-in set of shelves. But no growth chart.

And of course, our house will soon be nearly empty of clutter. We tossed enough stuff to fill our SUV twice with items to take to Goodwill. I rummaged through my son’s old Beanie Babies, his crib bumper, and a doll that belonged to my mother. Those things I kept.

When the garage was done, we moved to work in our basement. We have 4,200 feet of livable space, with a lower level walk-out. On this walk-out level are three rooms: my office, a spare bedroom/storage area, a big screen tv viewing room, plus a large open area that used to have a pingpong table, weight set, pool table and pinball game. I worked my way through old storage boxes, looking sadly at Michael’s fingerpainting efforts, his cards to me saying “Mom, I love you more than Dad does!” and photos of pet chameleons which never lived long. We found an old jewelry box that belonged to David’s mother. I insisted that rather than dump the contents we stop and take it to a jeweler. We did. Good thing. There was an old garnet pin inside, which easily could have been taken for costume jewelry. David also unearthed a beautiful strand of pearls, larger and creamier than the one he bought me years ago.

So far we’ve replaced our roof, added bigger gutters, painted the front door, tiled two areas formerly linoleum covered, cleaned the carpets, had paint dings fixed, replaced the old laundry sink I hated with a sink/cabinet combo. I took a break while writing this for David to pull three ticks off of me. Ticks I am sure found me yesterday while we were planting lemon yellow marigolds and red salvia around our mailbox. Or while I planted the window boxes that sit merrily on the banisters of our deck.

About the time I planned to take a break and write, the real estate agent called. She had a young couple who were driving around and asked to see our house. The couple has three kids. David, Michael and I played “beat the clock” finishing up getting the house presentable.

As the couple walked through, I had to restrain myself. I wanted to tell them, “You think this is just a house, but it isn’t. It’s a place where a happy family has lived. A place where we raised my son. Where we laughed and loved and played together. It could be happy for your family, too.”

But I didn’t.