a street with no name

i grew up on a street with no name. this bothered my poetic sense as a child. i had friends living pleasantly on mulberry lane and ivy hill road, but i grew up on east 171st street in a dark brown duplex. even that number seemed too large. perhaps had it been 3rd avenue or 2nd street it may have felt slightly more acceptable in my silly-girl dreams. a tad more poetic at least.  perhaps.  

i love names, not numbers. this was clear by middle school math. numbers and i had little in common. since those years in my brown duplex i have lived on streets with more picturesque names such as lakeview lane and sunset drive.  currently, we reside on buttercup trace.  buttercup was almost a deal breaker for my husband though. rick is a big man with a big voice. hearing him audibly lay claim to 815 buttercup trace has brought a touch of amusement to just a few individuals, not least of all, his wife.

my parents in front of the house -
yes! we had a paper route.

but back to the duplex on our number-named street. my grandparents lived downstairs and my family of six lived in close quarters upstairs.  eight of us sharing one roof, one driveway, one back door.  i found this arrangement of too many kids and too few bathrooms failing a bit in my often imagined perfect-family-fairytale.   most of my friends visited their grandmothers for sunday pot roast and potatoes and then promptly returned to their single family dwellings. but this wasn’t our case. i grew up with what felt at times a second 

on the back steps of east 171st street 

set of parents breathing beneath my floor boards. as a young teen one set seemed plenty. there were moments of frustration. i remember my grandfather waiting up for me. i can still see him standing under the bug-zapping bulb of our front porch watching me cross the street from kathy tramte’s house. it was okay when I was 7 and afraid of the menacing shrubs shadowing our front path. but at 14, when my first boyfriend walked me home from his ballgame, i can assure you i felt entirely different about grandpa’s observant perch on the front porch.

growing up, it was grandpa who walked out of the house and into the rowdy street’s kick-the-can game or hide-and-go-seek fun. he came to check on us. always. i could count on it. all of the neighborhood kids could. he knew their names and he knew their parents and there was something in this knowing. when front porch sleepover parties formed it was grandpa’s flashlight which swept over our ghost stories and our girl-giggles and our bags of doritos. it was his strong voice through the dark asking if we were okay and reminding us to be careful. as a child i heard only the overprotective and ever-watching worry in his words . i didn’t understand it and i didn’t always appreciate it. i wished often to be less protected. less watched. less known.

that was long ago. the house on a nameless street bears the most vivid memories of my childhood but it seems a different life as i now raise my own brood on buttercup. one warm evening recently i sat on my back deck and felt the taste of summer’s coming. i sat in filtered twilight gazing out at the acre of woods behind my brick home on its cul-de-sac-ed street. and the summer memories of childhood’s season seeped out of my mother veins. i was startled at my nostalgia for that brown duplex and the barefooted gang of reckless kids running rampant on 171st.  i found myself missing the grandparents living only a floor below … longing for a grandfather who knew every kid on the block. i was sad for how close they were and yet how far i had kept them in my most childish years.  how could i so carelessly take for granted a grandfather who loved me enough to come out for a thousand street crossings and a hundred neighborhood games? he was there watching. he was there listening. he was there loving.

my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary

my grandfather died the year i went off to college. but to this day, almost 25 years later, it is easy for me to see his tall frame bent over a pot of hardy marigolds on our small square of patio. he tended these plants with careful passion. summer nights this big boned man stood in the yard watering our tiny patch of city grass. i wondered why as a child. i just assumed he was once again planting himself near our teen-girl whisperings. watching. listening. spying. but now i know.  i, too, stand in my yard. i stand in my sprawling sprinkler-privileged yard and water thirsty spots on our georgia lawn. the steady streams of water in summer night-dusk ease the day’s tension and try-ings out of my mother-heavy shoulders. i breathe. i sigh with the day’s quiet closing.  i replenish my own brittle soul in the pulsing flow. and i watch and i listen and i spy. sometimes children happen across my evening quenching. and sometimes it is the white starflowers in their smoky glow. and sometimes it is the birds settling into their evening perch. but i feel close to my grandfather at this time. i only wish for the chance to tell him.

my street may have been lacking in poetry, but i should have listened more to the music of my grandparents. my, church organist, grandmother would practice each evening a floor below and my grandfather a lover of hymns would sing in his great big baritone. what a picture they created for that little-big girl. a beautiful picture i couldn’t name and i most certainly took for granted. but today in my mid-life when i am most in need of music’s comfort it is my grandfather’s voice i hear…singing, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus there’s just something about that name. Master, Savior, Jesus…like the fragrance after a rain. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let the heavens and earth proclaim…kings and kingdoms will all pass away, but there’s something about that name.”

my high school graduation

and i know. i know that growing up on a street with no name and in a house with, what seemed, too many adults was somehow good.  how often God gives us things we resent and rebuke and even rebel against…but how often these are the very things which protect us and shape us and the very things to which we return. effortlessly. eagerly. quietly. these might be the things which sweep over us in our independence and the things which check on us in our self-proclaimed freedom…but they are the very things which are able to comfort and quiet us in our later felt restlessness. and whether they happen on perfectly named streets or not, they are ours.  my gratitude comes a little late. gone are those summer-porch evenings in ohio. but even in its tardiness, i feel the quench of something remembered. the glimpse of something beautiful. the whisper of something well named.

grandma's christmas cookie cutters

sometime between dinner, homework and goodnight kisses 3 dozen cookies needed to be baked.  "it's a school project, mom." she said.  and who was i to argue with school or with a project.  "we need to have a recipe which we can halve or double, for Real World Math," she continued.  

"what? no slice and bake?" i asked, trying to conceal my disappointment. "we have to make REAL dough and bake REAL cookies...really? the whole nine yards? tonight?" 

 i glanced at the clock and did my best to stifle the sigh taking shape in my tired body.  rick was out of town and the oldest daughter was upstairs in bed, sick.  my usually helpful, oldest boy had announced he was slammed with pre-christmas-break-trying-to-fit-it-all-in-homework. and he disappeared down the stairs to his room.

that left me alone with the three youngest. i eyeballed them all standing expectantly in my kitchen, a cloud of anticipation hovering over their eager faces.  it was 7:45 and it had already been a very long day.  i just wasn't sure i had it in me to push back bedtimes and pull out the rolling pin and measuring cups.  

i tried one more time. "are you sure we can't do slice and bake?  how about drop cookies? rice krispie treats? oreos?" i was reaching for simpler straws here,  but my young ones, in their excitement, were already opening drawers and cabinets pulling out supplies and discussing decorating ideas.  before i knew what hit me, the island countertop was covered in flour and i had a mixing spoon in my hand.  my 11 year old daughter was calling out instructions to everyone. (she is like that).  somehow my clean, post-dinner kitchen had been overtaken by small people and too many ingredients.

sugar cookies.  does anyone have a really good recipe?  because i don't.  i would pay money for a good one.  well, maybe not money, but i'd really, really like a good, fail-proof, simple, yet yummy recipe.  do share! we mixed up the ingredients pretty quickly.  my daughter did her Real World Math, her doubling and halving thing, and then it was time to roll out the dough --everyone's favorite part.  for my kids, this is where all those years of working with playdough come in handy.  they believe themselves to be experts because, for years, they have been doing this with multi-colored, manufactured, chemically altered playdough.  playdough always works.  real dough doesn't.  real dough tastes a whole lot better, but it is difficult to manuever.  there is a fine balance between adding more water or adding more flour.  the dough can be too sticky or the dough can be too dry--it just depends.  playdough is always playdough and it is perfect until some careless kids mixes the colors, leaves the lid off or smears it into the living room rug.

but good recipe or not, rolling out the dough isn't easy.  at least in my kitchen it isn't easy.  plus, i had to give everyone a chance to try.  even bella insisted.  there was no way she was missing out on this pre-bedtime fun.  five minutes into the endeavor i was certain all of us would need to be bathed tonight.  there was flour everywhere.  even the dog, who had strategically positioned himself below us, was wearing a fine coat of white.  i saw bedtime creeping further away from my weary-woman clutches.  i don't know about you, but i need my children in bed at a reasonable hour, especially in a busy season like christmas.  i had plans for tonight;  christmas cards to address, teacher gifts to prepare, a few presents to wrap, (modern family to watch). but instead i was standing in my kitchen covered in baking flour and trying to keep three children from eating raw cookie dough.

with our lousy dough finally rolled out on the counter, it was time for the cookie cutters.  it's not that i bake cookies all the time, but you'd think by the size of my cookie cutter collection, i ran a small business out of my kitchen.  at the top of my pantry are two huge bins filled with cookie cutters.   we have the entire alphabet, all the numbers possible, enough stars to light the nightitme sky and hearts of every size.  we have leaves and trees and flowers and at least a couple dozen animals, including a kangaroo.  a kangaroo?  yes, a kangaroo.   "i want to make christmas trees, mama."  sarah declared, her head barely looking up from the too thin dough she was rolling.  "please find me a christmas tree."  i was right there with her.  let's make this simple, let's just do one thing and do it well.  we didn't need to use all 400 cookie cutters. oh no, we just needed to get in a groove, repeat a pattern, come up with a system--bake the cookies, and bed the children. bam! that was my plan---until i came across my grandma's christmas tree cookie cutter.

it was mixed in with the rest of the 400,  like nothing special. except that it is. special. clearly old fashioned, there was nothing plastic or easy grip about this cutter.  i pulled it out and held it in my flour-coated hand.  and as i sat there on my dirty kitchen floor,  i remembered, as a child, eating cookies exactly this shape.  i remembered the simple green sugar grandma used to cover these trees.  nothing extravagant, but beautiful to the eyes of a small girl. and delicious.  i don't know if it is true, but my grandmother seemed to do a lot of baking, at least in comparison to me.   growing up, for the first part of my childhood, we lived in a duplex with my grandparents. grandma's kitchen was just downstairs and it was quiet and clean and her dough was always perfect.  every year we spent christmas eve downstairs at my grandma's.  cousins came and christmas happened exactly the same way. we'd eat dinner and nibble on the christmas cookies, open presents and then head off to candlelight service at the exotic hour of eleven.  i am sure i took all of it for granted. there was nothing particularly special about this gathering repeated year after year at grandma's house. except, it was. 

we don't have that with our own children.  sure we have two wonderful grandma's houses to visit, but they aren't just down the stairs or just down the street.  they are 6 hours and 12 hours away,  and so it is different.  a couple of miles don't separate the kids from their cousins, but thousands of miles.  we have cousins in ohio, new york, oregon and utah.  too far to go for christmas cookies or candlelight church.  and oh, can i tell you, this grieves me.   probably one of my main regrets in life is all this distance between family.  i know my siblings feel it too. and i am sure the grandparents feel it even worse.  i grew up with grandparents involved in the tiniest intricacies of my life, with cousins who came to every birthday celebration, with summer cookouts, sunday afternoon visits and holiday meals.  we never had to think about what we were doing or where we were doing it, at least from my young-girl perspective, it all seemed simple.  there's not one sibling or cousin of mine that doesn't think of their birthday and not remember grandma's graham cracker cake with cream cheese frosting.  she baked one for everyone's birthday each year -- young and old.  i grew up on graham cracker cake.  i think of it every single time i turn another year older.

and sitting on my kitchen floor with this christmas tree cookie cutter in hand, i thought again of grandma.  i thought again of all those holidays with my extended family. it seemed almost too much for me at this late hour, with all these children, in all this baking mess, with all this bedtime still out ahead.  there are times when even we mother's long to return to things simple and similar.  times when we'd like to waltz down the stairs to christmas dinner and beautifully wrapped presents at grandmother's house.   but we are the dinner cookers and present wrappers and cookie bakers and magic makers.  we are the ones carefully creating special moments and lasting memories.   and, oh, let me just say, this delights me to be so.  i love this deeply.  i love my role, my job, my calling, my mothering.  as a little girl, i wanted nothing more then to grow up and have a home of my own and fill it with little ones and laughter and beauty.  but sometimes we bake cookies late at night, with wild children, and dirty floors and sticky dough.  and sometimes the magic feels a little dull and a little disappointing. because this is real life and real life is a little messier than our  girl-dreams imagined.  but then we find a treasure like grandma's christmas tree cookie cutter, and we remember.  and though it takes a lot of work to bake the cookies and make the merry, it is worth it. every sticky, flour-covered piece of it.

and tired, but encouraged, i take the christmas tree cookie cutter from the box of 400 and tell my youngest three, "this belonged to my grandma, let me tell you about her."



author's note:  something new i learned this christmas -- age 43:
if you allow a 3 year old girl to play with too much flour, she will, undoubtedly, spill most of it on the floor.  and the large golden retriever waiting patiently below will, undoubtedly, do his very best to lick it all up.  except that his mad tongue licking will only accomplish dampening the flour on the floor.  and when just the right amount of moisture is added to flour,  it eventually turns into a rather substantial paste.  a paste so substantial, it will require nothing short of multiple scalding hot water rinses and a razor blade to remove -- the next day.  

when we return home

somehow i managed to escape atlanta this weekend with only one child in tow.  bella and i shared a suitcase and traveled lightly to my parents house in ohio.   i finagled the leaving of four others at home with their father, four days before the start of school.  tomorrow night, on the eve of their first day, tiny girl and i will roll back into our home.  just barely making it in time to rouse a few summer-spent children to their uniforms and backpacks and brand new school year.  which as i write tonight from ohio, i can only hope we are ready for. 

the timing wasn’t ideal.  sitting 700 miles away, i am wondering mightily what we have forgotten to do.  i know there will be something.  i have left my children’s last minute summer reading and last minute school preparations in the hands of my husband. he is the best.  i mean, truly, he can handle every bit of this kind of weekend. he doesn’t flinch.  but still... it is not a weekend for the faint of heart.  there is always some last minute something in need of attending.  this is how it works in real life.  at least this is how it works in our life.

but it's my mom's birthday.  her 70th birthday.  she doesn’t know it quite yet, but tomorrow several of us will gather to celebrate this milestone...to celebrate her.  inconceivable as it is. how can i have a mother turning 70? she certainly doesn’t look it.  it seems only yesterday when she turned the corner into the backyard surprise of her 40th party.  i was 12 and it was the grandest event ever. my mother was 40 and beautiful and we all stood around in backyard grass, sipping soft drinks and asking how could it be possible?  and now she is 70 and we ask again. surely not, and heads shake.  

honestly, tonight i don’t have one theme or thread to weave this piece of writing tightly together.  only a sense of overwhelmed.  coming home will do that to a girl.  milestone birthdays and summer’s end will also do that...at least to this girl. 

i am writing tonight from the summer porch bedroom of my parent’s house.  it was not my bedroom growing up.  but it feels like home.  bella and i are sleeping in a white iron bed piled high with amish quilts.  the ceiling is sloped and the wooden floor creaks with even the smallest step.  painted furniture and wicker and windows surround us. mother and daughter tucked under the eaves of this 100 year old house - a fairytale room for summer sleeping.  this is bella’s first trip to ohio.  her first trip with me back to a place i will always belong.  a place which holds my heart. 

my parents no longer live in my childhood home.  but even this downsized house is filled with memories and things from my past.  just this morning i needed a cotton ball and my mom pulled out a glass jar.  the same jar i have been taking cotton balls from since i was a little girl.  the rattle of glass lid sounded the same.  i can remember how careful i was when removing it as a child not much older than bella. there have been so many years between me and that glass jar full of cotton.  so many memories.  so much has happened.  so much changed. 

my own girlish bedroom is gone.  some other family now occupies that house overlooking a lake. time marches and takes with it our things and our places and sometimes our treasures.   i am fortunate enough to know where bits and pieces have gone.  my oak princess dresser, now painted pale pink, is shared by my two daughters. it holds their items.  the middle drawer still sticks, just as it did when i was a girl.  a certain finesse is required.  and when i wiggle it open to place pajamas and underthings and socks inside, i am 15 again -  at least for a minute.   the hope chest which rested under my bedroom window collecting my teen journals and little girl things, is now at the foot of my bed filled with baby items from my own brood.  recovered and repainted and used by bella to climb up into our high bed.  the antique wash stand has moved on to my oldest girl's room.  it now works as a nightstand holding her own books and bible and pictures.  i am thankful some of these pieces have traveled through life with me.  i am even more thankful for the memories having nothing to do with furniture, but with family. 

coming home is bittersweet - like most good things in life seem to be.  i’ve come home this trip full of romantic notions about my childhood.  memories deep in me.  maybe it is my forties which stirs the wanting to remember.  i didn’t feel like this when i returned home from college bringing books and a boyfriend. and i didn’t feel like this when i returned in my 30’s trailing tiny children and a husband.  but now in this mid-season, it feels like too much memory on a saturday night in ohio. 

perhaps it is the little girl asleep next to me, head resting on country print pillow.  the little girl traveled all the way from china to the heartland of ohio.  how did she, a girl with no home, end up snuggling warm against my legs in this nest of calico quilts.  i am overwhelmed with the wonder...mesmerized by the miracle. the pure sweetness of it all.  in all of my girlhood dreaming i could never have imagined this moment. 
and mother turns 70 and daughter nestles warm and i return home and it is life...beautiful and moving and mine.  tonight in ohio.

mom's garden