"Imagine if"

Imagine if every time you opened a new box of cereal you found a pretty ceramic dish, perfect and flawless. Imagine this a real thing, that you could build a whole set of decorative dinnerware, enough for your family, of quality to last a lifetime and even pass on, just by having breakfast as usual.

In this age of sticker-shock on shrinking cereal boxes (holding cereal only) it is almost more than the mind can absorb! But indeed the 1911 acquisition of "Mother's Oats" by the Quaker Oats Company spurred an effort to encourage Americans to eat more oats, with pretty dishes in the boxes being a "carrot" to the consumer.

Previously, oats in America were more prevalently consumed as animal feed. The company's promotional brainstorm caused a quick stir of the pot, of oatmeal into bowls, inside of human kitchens. Women were said to have purchased (many) boxes of oatmeal ahead, and it is not hard to think they may even have emptied many boxes into bulk containers in their pantries. After all, the traditional Sunday dinners of the era needed pretty dishes, the sooner a full set the better.

I didn't have such a set handed down to me, but I still kept somebody's grandma's dishes, and I treat them as if I inherited them.

And I do not mean like fine china, used only for special occasions and stored protectively all the rest of the time.

I started my "set" by chance of having come across one pretty plate, a story told in a previous column. The one pretty plate turned into an eventual collection, for some time treated as so precious it did in fact fall into that "sheltered" category. Saved out, in a display cupboard, in "look but do not touch" style.

But one day I noticed something upon dusting them, a chore that comes to pass when pretty plates never fulfill their intended purpose. 

"Score" lines, gentle creases over the colorful flowers of the plates caught my attention. Not noticeable at a glance, up close and personal these lines spoke to me. They evoked distinctive images to me of knife-and-fork meals, of an attentive mother setting up a feast for her beloved family and everyone at the table diving in, with gusto and appreciation.

I thought of bread and butter and roasted meats and vegetables, of salads and side dishes, of contented sighs and harmonious conversations. My plates experienced all of that and more, and now emerged to tell me the tale about it.

They said, "We are none the worse for the wear."

And so I began using them, every day even. They were made in America and are the exemplification of quality, and yes, none the worse for the wear! Many decades past their exit from an oatmeal box, they still thrill my senses.

Their delightful entry into my everyday sphere really doesn't grow old. Each time they are wiped and set into the cupboard I am reminded of a time I didn't live in, but somehow still feel nostalgia for. 

It is that way for the things we wish we might have experienced, in the gentler annals of history. 

And I must end this column comparing the easier opening of that kind of "cereal" over the challenges of opening the boxes of today's many kinds of cold cereals. Sealed in wax bags as they now are, they can present quite the frustration to opening, at least to one impatient, "manly" man of this writer's household. 

He might be able to chop, drag, split and stack cords upon cords of firewood better than any man I have ever known, but open a box of cereal without it exploding onto every surface of his wife's carefully tended kitchen? Pour himself a bowl of the contents without mutilating the box? Make an easy breakfast for his wife without declaring a cardboard box and wax bag childproof and impossible??!!

No, he can't do that. So, any time I hear murmurings that it is time to open a new box, I am off and running, full speed ahead, "Let me get that for you, Honey."

And alas, I haven't found one pretty dish yet! 

If readers are interested in the tale of my first plate find (and other stories) please "like" my Less is Plenty page on Facebook.

"Waste Not, Want Not"

November is inspiring even in its drab chill. 

It prompts us toward preparedness, almost wherever we live. We may not all have recently harvested a garden, but we are all concerned about "bounty." We're all thankful to see it in our cupboards and freezers, and when we feel its sufficiency in our bones.

Our household has dabbled in self-sufficiency for decades. We know well the plusses and minuses of trying to produce many things for ourselves. We have learned that we are mostly not die-hard; if nobody does it better than a local grower and we can skip THAT grueling work, so be it. We have other grueling work to do, and we are happy to support someone who will "grow our garden" in greater joy than we can muster. 

There are a couple of apple trees out front, that do their due diligence at guilting me into work, though, as well a patch of rhubarb. Being perpetually fruitful, they (in their season) dare my conscience to let them go to waste.

I can't do that. So I bake pies and cobblers and cakes, and freeze slices and chunks until the freezer is taken up with them. I lament I need room for other things, but am I going to weep at bounty?

No, I'm going to store fresh what I can, preserve some in jars, and give pails away. Years past I also added into this solution other things we planted annually, popular things that most gardeners are inclined to grow and so must we, too. 

The trouble with keeping up with the Jones's garden is that except for a few universal classics, it is not in keeping with what a "Ramos" garden would most naturally look like. ln some ways we are as American as the apple pies I bake, but we are also creatures of the cultural foods we were both raised with, and so....

Beans and rice it is! They make the best sense for us for storing "bounty" and are SO easy to transfer from the bags on the grocery store shelves into the pretty jars in the pantry I love. 

Even after giving food away, wasting some we still don't eat is a very first-world condition.

Which brings me to a "slew of blue" (vintage canning jars) I once chanced upon.

It was at a landfill, when such a place still resembled more of its old-school namesake, the "dump." 

This one was near Wheeler, in the 90's. In those days I drove our blue Jeep pick-up into the place, backed up and unloaded our household trash. There were no bins to separate items, just one big pile to add this, that and everything to, the sort of pile soon-to-be nevermore.

One afternoon as I was doing this, another woman in another pickup truck backed up next me, dropped the gate and hopped into its bed to start shoving her "trash" onto the rubbish heap. 

My jaw dropped. She was ridding herself of dozens of vintage blue canning jars, quarts and pints and even half-gallons galore. Some still held sealed foods; she was casting away her Mama's hard work in preserving bounty!

Waste of food aside, I coveted those pretty blue jars. For a brief moment my innate shyness held and I almost drove off. But desire overtook. I soon piped up: "As long as you are throwing those away, would you mind if I took a few?"

"Have at it," she said, and paused to let me help myself. I took about a dozen and a half, feeling strangely greedy at that. Later I wished (many times) I had been greedier! I've used those jars unceasingly and knowing that so many more were literally relegated to a rubbish pile still boggles my mind.

For several seasons I did what those native to Wisconsin did. I preserved a garden in those jars and others. I tried my hand at the pickles they pickled and also made jams from the wild fruits on our place. I filled shelves and cupboards with the pleasing sight of bounty, and almost wept to begin using their beauty, and to usher in the dwindling of "plenty."

But something strange happened on the way to extracting the literal fulfillment of the jars. As we gradually emptied them, I realized I was preparing meals around them, when we so often more craved the foods of our upbringing.

These had never come in sealed blue jars, or cans of any sort, really. They mostly came to our mother's kitchen in bags, and in fresh forms from the neighborhood supermarkets. They were always nourishing and delicious, signifiers of home and comfort.

It was really up to me how I wanted to proceed. I had loved learning to preserve bounty, and this was inspired by what the locals did. So much of what inspired THEM was a desire to hold faithful to the comforting food traditions they were raised with. Their descriptions of foods unfamiliar to me were intriguing, so that sometimes I tried versions of their favorites. 

Like my own mother, I did like to change it up in the kitchen, but also felt more a creature of my upbringing, and culture. Aren't we all?

So it ended up that less was plenty in things I didn't want to plan meals around. Instead I took beans and rice and flours and filled the blue jars with them, and a simple few other things we consume consistently.

They don't grow old stored that way, and they don't grow old in inspiration for a good home-cooked meal. Throw in the fresh stuff and there we have it: our own traditions carried on.

I love how in America we can all do this! We can keep and share and try so many traditions, and in the course of this "taste" for ourselves at least a portion of almost anyone's experience. 

One of my big blue jars is now reserved as a vessel to affirm "blessings." Onto a small piece of paper I jot down good things that have come to us, over the course of a year. I have read that to do this is especially important in trying times, because when a person feels distressed by continual challenge, it is encouraging to realize every day offers good things, too. At the end of a year, one can empty the jar to be reminded how true this is.

This November has driven home to me the beauty of the artistic image of "Grace," by Eric Enstrom. You may be familiar with this picture, of an old man bowing over his simple meal in thankfulness. His expression of gratitude is vivid with earnestness, and it is over bread and soup, that's it. No buffet of endless "sides" and "mains," bread and soup it is, and such a feast at that.

The image also reminds me of how ages ago in the family restaurant in California, my uncle Dick would stand in the kitchen and put what he liked on a flour tortilla, roll it up and eat it. Once he did this with a chile relleno, a cheese-stuffed Anaheim pepper, battered and quick-fried. (A "peppered" cheese curd, if you will). My mom had never done that, so I thought it a bit strange and when my "look" kind of said so, he said (with gusto) "It's GOOD!!"

It IS good! I take it up a notch with adding beans and smothering it all in a green sauce and more melty  cheese, and I think of him every time I do this. He would have approved and I like to think he might have even put it on the menu. 

But the best thing I took away from that little exchange is how "leveling" it was, how people and families in their homes everywhere just want something filling and tasty good and that (in the best of circumstances) this is really how so much of the world lives.  Satisfied and grateful at nourishment, in good shelter, peace and love--a summation of BLISS to fulfill our deepest senses. 

So, even if our pantry is stocked with much more than the makings of bread and soup, I am enamored with the driven point that "more" of "less" can be plenty.

Because "bounty" is in the eye of the beholder, and its arrival is perceived, one heart and one mindset at a time.

"Rockin' With You"

Are the second and third grandchildren doted less upon, much as the second and third child seem to be?

In our own grandparenting, we think so. Now make no mistake, each one is generously loved! Each one we would lay down our lives for.

But spend as much money on as the first? 

We had to apply the brakes a little. The second "shift" came in almost as twins, very close in age. The very first grandchild had us to herself, when the sky seemed more the limit. 

We so enjoyed giving her experiences. Ramon (otherwise known as Grandpa) noted during his work in the Twin Cities different places to bring her back to on the weekends. Each excursion involved considerable thought and expense, but nothing made him happier than outings we could go on together that we were each enthusiastic about. We went to museums, shopping malls, zoos, carnivals, ethnic markets and celebrations, all kinds on mini road trips.

Once Grandpa went all out to buy new camping gear to try "roughing it," something we hadn't done with our own children. That appealed to me less than ever so I encouraged they two should go and I would happily stay home.

He loves to tell the story of that camping trip, what a beautiful place it was and all they did. He decided to top off their final day by visiting a store he knew she would love. The caveat to her was that she should know he was done spending money for now, the camping trip having been squeezed in between all kinds of other recent outings and purchases for her. 

This was Grandpa's weak attempt to teach her limitations, that the sky was NOT the limit, that she could sometimes have desirable things in front of her that she could not have, that the world would keep spinning if she had to do without one more figurine of a barnyard (or wildlife) creature.

The thing was Grandpa KNEW ahead he would buy her another one, to add to the hundred or so he had bought for her before. Each one was only about five-dollars, and he isn't really the type to torture the child OR himself, over her unrequited longing for a five-dollar thing in a store she probably wouldn't have the chance of seeing again anytime soon.

But he just had to lay out ahead, an expansive explanation that a lot of money had been spent recently, and he now only had "a few dollars left for the gas home" in his pocket. 

She wasn't buying that. In her few years of experiences with Grandpa, she knew he had more money burning a hole in his pocket, for her. And this store had something she hadn't seen before (well of course it did), a trailer to pull her little horses in. So, when the moment hit, he said, "Well, we can buy the gas to get home, or we can buy this trailer. Which should it be?"

She chose the trailer. He pulled out the funding. When they left the building, he filled up the gas tank and drove them both home.

To her credit she was five and to his discredit, he was probably fifty-five. We're very grateful she (over time) also witnessed his hard-work ethic and absorbed that influence too!

Fast-forward to our "second shift" in grandparenting, the more recent years. We both pretty much retired our jobs toward the purpose of helping out with them, so it wasn't like we didn't know what we were getting into. The first one taught us what to expect, as did our responses to her.

We told ourselves we were going to have to rein ourselves in. Now it would be two of everything to purchase, and four in admissions to everywhere. It was almost like parenting all over again, on a fixed income. We could still do the occasional bigger thing, but it was now going to be more parks and picnics, more fast-food than real restaurants, more natural world experiences than commercial amusement extravaganzas. 

We were going to be cheap, but it was still going to be good. 

One of the earlier summers I do remember finishing up a small excursion with a stop into the local big box store to let the two pick a "five-dollar" something from the toy aisle. Many years had elapsed from the first grandchild to these, but funny how that amount still seemed reasonable to Grandpa and me!

We soon saw that it wasn't. The only thing the kids could see in that range was a strange little "gimmick" object in an "eggshell" that "hatched" into a surprise animal. There were dozens of them. Seeing that the future could evolve into a "collection," I shrewdly decided to read the label for clues on how not to collect the same animal more than once.

I saw nothing helpful on this, so I called over an employee to ask what he knew about things. Mostly I wanted to know how going forward we could avoid purchasing repeat objects, again and again. I added to include how the PARENTS might avoid this, this possible beginning of a thing the grandparents got everyone into!

He too read the packaging and confirmed my greatest fear: we could well end up with multiple repeats. This I could not have! Here was a battle between the shrewdness of myself, and the shrewdness of the creator of said gimmick. I knew I would have to be strong in the sight of sweet and hopeful smiles, but I did it anyway. I said to them, "Kids, this is like the toy in your meal when we pick up hamburgers, except you don't get the hamburger."

Poor things. They (and Grandpa too) had no choice but to follow me, out the door, to the car, to the so-called "dollar store," which I hear tell is currently considering a reboot to the "dollar and a half" store.

They were little. Everything looked better than it was, and they could now pick five things instead of one! They liked the store so much it was like a new "ticket" to entertainment for many more times going forward.  

But even those days now are in the rear-view mirror. We played several years of roulette in what will it be this week, will we take them on a real trip that involves real lodging and real expenses, or will it just be hikes on our trails with lunches on the porch? Will we camp in a real camper-trailer and stay overnight places (we did, for a time), or will we just go to lunch and a children's museum for a day and call it good? 

We did plenty with them too, and the time has flown. It has whizzed by so fast Grandpa in particular has had a time of it, letting go of their "littleness." 

He has said to me time and again, "I'll be alright when the time comes, because I learned from having a daughter, and then the first granddaughter, what happens. All of sudden we're not their world anymore, and I will be okay when it happens."

This from the guy I watched once, hauling with his bicycle a buggy, the "second shift" tucked in, so big by then their rear ends almost sparked the gravel on the way out.

On the way out to wherever they were going, on the way back to NOW. Mostly just Ramon and I, keeping busy, but often taking the time to watch the world drive by from the porch. Where we're now living out (in the words of the John Conlee song): "That old rockin' chair don't scare me like it used to; it doesn't matter as long as I'm rockin' with you."

"It's all good" is like a miracle--something unexpected happening in a needed and beautiful way.

 We dreaded a window of time but found we love this one, too. 

"The Iceman Cometh"

 I long to be nostalgic about the days of "the iceman cometh" but it was before my time.

Still, I so wish it was an option for the current day, that a body would deliver ice blocks to an "icebox" at home, and that my household never HAD to rely on plugging a refrigerator in, ever again.

Now don't get me wrong. I love a running refrigerator, that never stops running. That's what I want. I think it's what we all want, long-term reliability--that a "chip" or a "module" or a "motherboard" will not die randomly on us, and usually right after we got the mother of all grocery orders all tucked in.

It's happened to me too often. Mostly at my food business, whereby a cautious operator almost by default HAS to have another refrigerator (or more) running at all times, in case one goes out. Because one WILL go out, setting off an immediate panic about food safety and food loss.

It happened enough that the phobia transferred to the home refrigerator. I have since bought refrigerators (and other appliances) before their time was up, finding homes for the still-good ones and marking my calendar for the "predicted longevity" of the next one.

The "predicted longevity" of the modern day is 5-7 years I hear, while the predicted longevity of an old-fashioned icebox is pretty much defined as infinite, and I should know it pretty much is. 

At one point I tried it. I bought an old icebox in an antique store, wiped up its shelves and polished its pretty oak exterior, made my own ice "blocks" and set the groceries in.

I tried to keep up. Into my "normal" freezer I alternated ice cream pails filled with water for the ice. A drip tray underneath the icebox had to be guarded from overflow, not as easy as you'd think, considering there was an attractive oak lift-shield I liked to keep shut, for pretty. One hour of not staying on top of things and water would stream out onto the maple kitchen floor. 

The insulation on that particular unit might have been worn down; things kept cool but not ice cold.  I would guess the old-timers who really used these iceboxes in consistency would probably say this was the way it was anyway, but it was a step up in their day from fishing the butter crock out of a creek. 

All I could do was try. It might have helped if this experiment didn't take place in the midst of whole days at the cafe, when it was not possible to lift up the pretty shield to see if too much water had collected already. But it was the unreliability of refrigerators there that inspired the icebox at home, so there was that. 

Of course, it didn't take long for me to plug the electric fridge back in. The lesson of the experiment seemed to be that we are a species of weaklings, who view the next great thing as a thing that makes the previous great thing too much of a hassle, too much of an effort.

A few months ago I decided it was time to not risk the time again, that we would have a fridge stocked with plenty and it would die. At the appliance store I only momentarily fancied a bevy of shiny beauties, having soon been told, "There are global shortages and delays right now, and most of these won't come until about June of next year."

That was before Christmas, and it's still not June. So, one-by-one (and just in case) I asked, "What about this one? What about that one?" until each was quickly eliminated, and only two realistic choices of immediacy were left to pick from. I had already initiated the futile discussion of "Is there a unit made anymore that isn't reliant on modern computer parts and would last like the ones in the good old days?" whereby she did say no, and whereby I did inquire if she had a selection of Coleman coolers.

She didn't take me seriously. We found a home for our "old" fridge and ordered the one unit that would come quickly. We are now off to the races, hoping we will make it beyond the finish line of at least seven more years.

In the meantime, I'm still serious. I have a big Coleman on the porch, and I'm not afraid to use it. I wish it looked as charming as the vintage oak boxes that rested outside windows back in the day, the ones that were stocked with renewed chill on the days "the iceman cometh." A body inside the house could just reach out for the milk and butter, no electricity needed.

I'm all for charm, and I'm all for practical. I would love "old" iceboxes to be offered "new" again, and I would love for an iceman to put me on his route. I wish they made cook stoves the way they used to, a "Monarch" that could utilize up to three fuels, warm the house if needed and operate without a plug, too.

In some ways progress has us in regress, I tell you! But if I'm going to look at the bright side, I just got a new fridge, and I'm good to go. For a for a little stretch, anyway.

Never Can Say Goodbye

Some of the hardest places to live are the hardest places to leave. The places of investment, in heart and soul and toil and belief in a best possible life. A place where it was difficult to get to, in the first place. 

In 1988, immigrant pioneers we were not, but we still came to a lifestyle and region foreign to us, because of hardship.  With a minimum of money but a wealth of dreams, like the pioneers, we could have land! Acreage, rolling fields and woods. A farmhouse, if dilapidated and barely removed from many years of abandonment. 

Build your dream and it will come, we thought. So, we listed our Colorado home, went to work in California and eventually signed on the dotted line for a different one, in the crosshairs of random hope and deeper seeds of faith. 

We did not sign on for peace of mind. When we finally arrived, we were so awash in doubt we despaired and almost didn't want to unload the rented truck. Our two young kids must have been so confused by parents who had hyped a "dream" to them for almost two years but now acted as if its arrival were a nightmare! 

We knew no one, but the locals were kind and that helped. It was April and the landscape shrugged off winter into a greening Eden, even in what later proved to be a drought year. We were making friends quickly, becoming a part of what did look like a wonderful place to live.

It appeared to be "Onward Wisconsin" for us, but the Colorado house hadn't sold, and Ramon had only found the poorest of work. It was hard to do all that was needed to prepare for an eventual winter in a house we couldn't do much to fix, one that was heated by wood alone. A proper chainsaw and truck for the woods were out of the question until the house in Colorado sold. As long as that house WAS unsold, we waffled. We could still possibly go back, and we might have to.

Each day we experienced a mix of highs and lows. The casting aside of realities to get here now reared its ugly head. We hadn't planned well! We had planned on fate intervening in the nick of time in a positive way, and only when we were in the trenches could we see it might not work out. And that maybe we didn't even want it to, after all.

Still, we began to plant a garden. With shovels, we turned soil that hadn't been worked in ages. In my own mind I was contemplating if we would even be here for its harvest. If we were, we would need it, so we might as well do the work. 

As the four of us dug, we began to turn up pieces of objects from another era, rusty fragments of farm implements and hardware, old bottles and broken glass. When our son pulled up a dish, he called me over to see it. He flipped a whole small plate, with clingy dark earth that I brushed off, to see a pretty pattern, and to GASP.

I gasped because the dish was an exact match to one single other one that I treasured, one that I'd found for a dime in Colorado and had tried for years to find more of. In fourteen years of living there, I never could scare up even one more, not in the dozens upon dozens of antique stores that we had visited.

Serendipity, some would say. I looked it at otherwise. It was messaging. We had to believe we were meant to be here, we had to stop doubting. And to double-down on this messaging, the next time we went to the mailbox, there was a package in it from my sister, holding a sweet little picture with words that said, "Go forward and never lose sight of your dreams."

How could she know?! I wondered. We'd only said, "We have our work cut out for us here." Pride had kept us quiet; we hadn't said much to the family and friends who were waiting to hear more, about how it was going for us.

She didn't know. It was messaging again, responsive to that leap of faith we had taken.

It's been over thirty years now since that fateful time. Lately I've been looking at other houses and places. But faithfulness to this one is a weird thing! Surely there's something finer out there, and it's fun to be on the prowl, if a fling with a different one sounds better for a new (or older) stage of life. But it takes time and a lot of lived experiences to make a house more than a house, a place to live more than just a place.

Once you've raised kids and helped grandkids grow up mostly in one single house and place, it's a home, and it's like second skin. If you hurt, it helps you heal, especially if you still have another beating heart in its walls with you. Maybe ONLY if you have another beating heart in it with you! So it is for some, not for others. 

For pleasure, work and exercise we've traversed hills and fields all these years. We still prefer a wood fire over the cooler breath of an alternate fuel.  Whether for joy or for winter warmth, it all adds up to work. Work that doesn't get easier with time.

But it's even harder, to consider leaving your "storied" place! At least this far.                                                                        

Lightness at the end of a Secret

 My husband playing Christmas music in February inspired me to think of secrets we feel dark about, that end up unfolding toward lightness, and good, so that you finally long to share them.

He'd been reaching for a Beatles CD and accidentally dropped Lauren Daigle's Christmas compilation, which spilled onto the floor and having to know if he scratched it, he decided to play it.

We love that CD, and hearing it brought me to think of the niece who recommended it to me a few years ago, and thus to a secret I kept long ago, in regard to her mother, my sister Cindy.

Cindy and I were three years apart. When I was little and timid, she was a powerful force of vibrant personality and strong will. Sometimes she was so hard on me I made inner promises to myself I would NEVER speak to her again, and I MEANT it! 

And then she would ask me to join her "midnight club," where just she and I would get up at midnight, meet in a (big) closet central of the house, and discuss future doings for our club. (We actually did that once, and having nothing to really plan, quickly went back to bed).

You know how it goes, with siblings. One day it might be laying down your life (she once pulled me onto her shoulders in the ocean, when we somehow lost our footing and found ourselves gasping for air, inciting an actual rescue by two swimmers nearby) and the next day it might be all-out estrangement.

When I was a freshman in high school, she was a senior. A whole lot of life had passed between us by then, for better or worse. I now considered her my very cool big sister, and I almost burst with pride and happiness, when her friends would start conversations with me, mentioning favorable things Cindy had said to them about me. 

I almost felt "cool" too. 

Apparently, I was SO cool and appeared to be so close to Cindy, that one friend in particular asked me one day, "What do you think of Cindy getting married already?"

What?? I knew nothing of this. But the friend (hardly taking pause at my evident surprise) went on to inform me that when Cindy turned 18 in 3 weeks, she and her boyfriend were eloping.

Cindy hadn't told me because Cindy feared that even if I kept the secret, my loyalties would be torn, between her and my mom, between what might be right and what might be wrong, between what might turn out good for her and what might turn out to be disaster for her.

I knew for sure telling this secret would be disastrous to hers and my relationship, our closeness. I knew my mother would be enraged and would do everything in her power to stop Cindy from doing this, and so then THEIR relationship would be destroyed. And as the stubborn, willful force from whom Cindy was born, it seemed to me my mother had the power to win.  

Don't ask me to do the math but I think I was fourteen, 15 at most. This was a burden I didn't want; it was a responsibility I didn't have the maturity to even begin to know how to "unload."  

So I did nothing. I said nothing. In 3 weeks I said nothing and Cindy married, informed my mother, and their relationship did seem destroyed. And I didn't have closeness with Cindy either because she no longer lived under our roof and was not free to visit or contact us.

She did call me secretly, anyway. For a few months she phoned me intermittently, always trying to get a "feel" if Mom had calmed down, if she was softening. When I finally (on wobbly legs) brought up to Mom that Cindy had asked if there was any possibility she could come visit, she answered, "I guess."

That was my mom's way of expressing openness, and so the healing began.

Cindy and her husband had two beautiful babies soon in a row, but the marriage didn't last. 

But the kids lasted, you know? They are beautiful people with beautiful souls, and my goodness, if you could see the beautiful children that came when THEY had children!! It goes on, the beauty. The more life, the more stories, the more love, the more fullness of family going forward.

I felt guilt about that secret; my mother never knew what I knew when I knew it. She might have laid blame on me! But the awe and admiration she often expressed toward Cindy's kids and grandkids  eventually convinced me there was no "blame" to take; it had all in time turned for good.

Sharing a secret is your confidence in someone, or a limited few. I've since shared this secret with (a couple of) my other siblings, but not with Cindy's kids and grandkids. They will now know! But I don't think they will spend precious time wondering "What if our grandma somehow stopped our family from coming to be?"

That's not how fate works. What will be, will be. 

But if we know a little bit more in our history as to how things came to pass, that too adds fullness to a life. We can take stock of what might have been, what might NOT have been.

I held a secret, and it seemed dark. I'm so glad it unfolded toward lightness and good, and although it's very personal to me, I'm happy to finally this day, long to share it.

It's done!!

I used to be afraid to use words. Of lining them up in rows, in choosing this one over that one. Maybe it was shyness, or humility, or insecurity. I longed to be expressive, but as my husband (Ramon) would often say, "Why do people pick hard words over simple words, that most people already know?" He was no help!

You know who was a help? My dad was a help. Another man you would think preferred the simpler words, but who one day unknowingly pressed a "I can do this" button in me.

It was in Colorado, where Ramon and I had rented temporarily, and were preparing to buy a house. Because we hadn't been there long, we didn't have a phone line put in. Instead, we drove weekly to a phone booth with piles of quarters in hand, to call our parents.

Winter was approaching, and my dad asked, "How are you acclimating?"

Acclimating? What's that?? I had to ask him, "What does that mean, 'acclimating'?"

He pleasurably informed me that it meant how a person was adjusting to new surroundings, and usually a change in climate that might come along with that.

Oh. Why didn't he just ask if I was getting used to the weather in this new location? 

I don't know! But I liked that he thought I might know the word. I liked that HE knew the word.

My dad was "just" a hod carrier, a union laborer. He worked hard, with his back, and with his hands. He wasn't prone to very deep or long conversations, ever that I knew of. When I heard him use this intriguing word that I did not know, I realized that I honestly didn't know the true extent of his vocabulary.

And I was suddenly interested more, in his vocabulary, and what it might mean for mine. I knew that Dad spoke about John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and Pearl S. Buck. He had their books on a shelf. 

I picked them up when I lived at home, and I eventually read them when I lived elsewhere. I loved that my dad knew these authors. 

But I think too my dad was like Ramon and so many others, myself included at times, why use certain words, when you can use simpler words?

Sometimes we should keep it simple! And sometimes, why not use other words, beautiful words, expressive words, when you can, if you dare, if you think someone else might appreciate or even extract something good, from them?

My dad pushed a button in me, and my husband has come along for the ride. Ramon now says living with me is like living with a dictionary....not quite! There's always so many more words to learn.

But the less-simple ones I've learned and became willing to openly use, I've come to think I can somehow credit to my dad. All I had to hear was a glimmer of his joy at teaching me a word! All I had to absorb was that he likely knew so many more, but that shyness, humility, and insecurity kept those words locked up in a pen of inhibition. 

Here are some words (not mine, not complicated) I also think my dad would have enjoyed--the heart of their very expression. Love and concern for children in what can be a cruel, uncertain world, so many of us craving the peace of wild things, and places.

I'm not so sure we who grew up in the concrete of cities would so naturally "lie where the wood drake rests" but I know my dad did long for natural and growing things! Where he lived he created his own backyard haven, and he would have loved Ramon's and my haven here in Wisconsin, where the backdrop of this poem looks just like our home, and the peace of wild things.

                                                                

Long ago and far away, my older sister and I "hung out." We did things and went places together.

A sister between us, Cindy, had married and left home, the moment she turned 18. So Cris "made do" with me. Four years older than I, it somehow worked out, and went well.

One thing we occasionally did was drive south-of-the border, to eat in the restaurants, and see a cousin, Sylvia. We went shopping in the main district of Tijuana, picking her up before heading there. Sylvia often spent weeks at our home in California during the summers and had told us: "If you go shopping without me, you're going to pay a lot more for your things."

So (and because we were cousins and loved her) we picked her up at her home just across the way, and she bartered for us knowingly, with skills that amazed us. We chose our hippie leather purses and belts, embroidered peasant tops, knickknacks and even tiny bottles of liquor. (How did THAT happen, I think now!!) But shop we did, and fun it was, especially because we didn't know then we should have guilt over not giving people their due; we were young and only wanted all we could get, for our money.

The first time we had shopped without Sylvia produced a life-long memory and message that had nothing to do with the marketplace. We must have known that Sylvia was either working or at school, and so we planned on eating and shopping alone but to stop at her house anyway before heading back home, to say hello to her mother.

"Chuy" (Spanish nickname often and somehow derived from "Maria de Jesus") was this lovely, sweet-tempered woman, a favorite person in my mom's life, as was Sylvia, too. There were many children in the family, as I remember I think they eventually added up to 10. Filling the small house with fine furnishings and lots of toys never happened! Instead the children played with each other outdoors a lot, inventively and creatively. I remember when younger, that exploring the countryside in groups was not forbidden but encouraged, that no one ever squabbled as much as stayed cheerful, mostly contented with each other. They were always happy to see the cousins from "el norte."

They were welcoming. When Cris and I showed up unexpectedly that late afternoon, Chuy's face lit up to greet us. She urged us into her humble kitchen, and fussed that we should sit and visit at the table with her.

But Chuy didn't sit. She called to one of her young sons, and pulled from a cupboard a jar with dollars and change. We didn't know what was being said. Although Cris and I were more than happy to visit her, we had a lack of good verbal communication because we sadly weren't fluent in Spanish, and she not in English. We assumed she was sending her young man to the store as a common thing, and settled in to "chat" while she began fixing the supper for her family.

Into a skillet she sautéed rice; I remember she used water from a big jug of water the family used for cooking and drinking. She puttered and cooked, adding the newly-purchased ingredients when "Hector" returned from the store. It promised to be a delicious meal, traditional enchiladas but made with a white cheese our mother didn't use in her own version.

Cooking for her big family was something we supposed she did every day about this time. We didn't give it a thought, really. But when after awhile she served food generously onto plates and set them in front of US, we knew--she had sent her son to the store for an unplanned meal--special food for special guests. What might be left over, she would add to and fill out later for the rest of the household.

But THIS food, these filled platters, were for US. For me and Cris.

And me and Cris, JUST before arrival to Chuy's kitchen, had JUST finished eating huge platters of food, in a restaurant in town.

We were STUFFED. Not one bit hungry, crammed to the gills, no room at the inn. Not one bit able to communicate our mixture of gratitude and dismay, at not realizing her efforts were for US.

My sister and I locked eyes, and picked up our forks. Nothing to do, but try to eat.

So try to eat we did. We moved the food around, and nibbled, as if the time we took would give us time to get hungrier, and we could make more headway. It took all our unwilling regrets, to attempt to convey to her how appreciative we were, but we just could not eat a thing.

Oh, to have not wasted that food!! That was special fare, for that day of the week we knew. How lacking in us, not to have taken better notice, of what might be happening. We gave our apologies the best we could, but to this day I have to wonder: Did we miss her offer of a meal? Were we that careless, because surely I know how to say these many words now: "Muchos gracias, y lo siento, pero nosotros no tiene hambre ahorita." ("Thank you, and we're sorry but we're not hungry right now." Ahead of time, so as not to see that work and that graciousness, and that food, go to waste.

I've always wanted to say more. I know what it is to want to nurture! I know that nurture and generosity adds up to kindness and love, the greatest gestures to both give and receive.

I may have seen "Chuy" a handful of times since then, if that. I never relayed being at a loss that day. It wasn't a small thing! It did make me very happy in later years to hear that Chuy's life became much changed; she has been nurtured beyond that which she might ever have imagined, and it may be she has long forgotten my and Cris's experience in her kitchen.

I hope so!! But I never have.

How much do YOU accomplish with a butter knife, that has nothing to do with buttering bread?

For all the years I ran my small-town café, a butter knife was my go-to tool for almost anything I needed to try to fix on my own. Pretty much if a butter knife couldn't fix it, it required a hiring.

There was a handyman husband involved, it is true--but he was so often at his own work, at least an hour away, or occupied with other equally important matters in things I wanted done at home.

So a butter knife it was, for prying and loosening, lifting away, scraping, and getting into needed things for needed outcomes.

When I used my particular butter knife, of substantial size and weight, I sometimes thought of my mom and grandmas, who often said to me growing up, "Get me a butter knife". When their men were not around, a butter knife was their helper, too.

The other morning, my husband was "in the building", busy with a periodic cleaning of the gunk beneath the drain-cap in the bathroom. It was a frosty morning with gray skies, and the grumbling began when the cap somehow slipped from his grasp and settled with an irretrievable "thunk" into the drain.

He refused my suggestion of a butter knife, and even of a vintage set of pliers I sometimes add into my mix of problem-solvers.

"That will never do it," he said. "There's a rounded edge and it's in there tight; I'll have to go to the garage and find my good pliers."

Going to the garage involved more fuss and at least a minimum of dressing-warm--socks and shoes and a heavy jacket for a few moments of searching. But search and return he did, with his prized pair of pliers, which did NOT work.

More grumbling, but now willingness, to accept the butter knife I thrust into his hand.

A little tuck-under and a wiggle, and apparently up it came, as I heard it from the kitchen. (But do you think he would confirm this?!)

And this is when I thought: God does bless women when they are alone, with a butter knife.

I said to my man: "SEE? I know the value of a butter knife. If you should be gone and I'm alone taking care of things, it's a butter knife for me. I used one all those years at the shop for so many things; I don't need no stinkin' toolbox."

Now don't get me wrong. I know women are more than capable with a real tool box, and real weaponry for that matter. My own granddaughter is in her second year of studies to become an auto mechanic, and she fires a mean shot often, at the center of a bulls-eye.

But basic and old-school is good, too! Something that doesn't require muscle or weeding out from a multitude of options, something at hand and as ordinary as a butter knife will do.

I almost don't know how to use a butter knife for its intended purpose anymore, do you? They are either out-sized and clunky for my butter dish and even for our dinner plates, or wimpy and pointless for anything else, like cutting meat. You can't slice a thing with a butter knife, and I far prefer handy little spreaders that are more optimum for slathering things perfectly.

But I still have a full supply of butter knives in my kitchen drawers. I keep them for....I don't know why I keep them. Probably for the one person a year who might ask for one. Maybe because they're expected in a drawer, maybe because the minute I give them away I will find I really need them.

Maybe YOU still use butter knives in multiple ways? If so I'd like to know what for! I kind of see them on the brink of obsolete--like orange reamers or crank ice-crushers, things that are still needed but better forms have taken their place. I still need a cutting tool, but anything seems better than a butter knife.

So the most sensible place for a butter knife in my house seems to be my "everything" drawer--the catch-all receptacle for all things hardware. It falls right in line there, with measuring tapes and screwdrivers and rubber bands, and all manner of second rate stuff my husband casts my way.

Funny how he thinks all this "it will never do" stash hardly matters, because I always rely on him coming to my rescue anyway.

And as long as I can, I will. But yeah, I do know and "get" the REAL value of a butter knife!

The Trouble with the Times

The trouble with the times is that Godless passion is the new religion, and moderation is a mortal sin.

Societal harmony is no longer an option, because even benevolent silence is now disrespected. Don't have a crazy-hard opinion on social or political issues? Then get ready for derision; your complacency makes you a part of the problem. It means you are "not listening", that you are apathetic, that you don't care, that you are ignorant and uninformed.

No one has to tell you these things directly. All one has to do is care about reading up on current events, and be curious enough to read the commentary, and the commentary on the commentary. Used to be becoming informed was a noble thing; now it is a trash thing. People trashing people for thinking differently, for trying to form enlightened opinion, for seeking the contrasting view but holding to one's own.

In the course of holding to your own, do you ever dig your heels in? Of course you do. Even mild-mannered people dig their heels in; it is second nature to survival. Holding to one's own validates everything we are about--what inspires and drives us, what makes us beings of integrity. It pays honor to the conclusions we've come to, and upholds the principles and values we cherish.

Principles and values--in the eye of the beholder stuff. I am the first to agree that a "churched" life has little to do with innate principles and values, so YES, the Godless passion of some can lay shame to the God-claimed passion of others.

"Live and let live", so long almost anyone's sacred mantra (at least in theory) is now an outdated, or if used, dishonest mantra. It doesn't pass the sniff test, when people talk the words but actively stomp the march to pass the legislation to obliterate the true "live and let live" out of society.

Does not marching mean you don't stand for anything? It seems so, more and more. We live in an era where simple, earnest prayer is scorned as an exercise in futility by many, more than ever before. But many DO still pray, and simple and earnest contemplation in itself will never be scorned.

I don't know what is "enough" to bring back more possibilities for harmony. But I experienced harmony yesterday, by mixed minds finding common ground and maximizing on that. A beautiful thing, and time will have to tell for the rest. We can pray, and we can hope! In the meantime, with moderated passion I love the timeless words of this hanging that accompanies our door; I hope the message will carry us through this and all seasons yet to come. A blessed Christmas season to you, and happy holidays, too!!

Potato Chips in Heaven

In what ways do you revert to your childhood, and does frequently "going back" mean the end of your world is on the horizon?

For all our maturations and hard-fought wisdom, what does finding ourselves longing for our past mean? Does it mean regression of what we have struggled for in our recent modern history? Is it acquiescence to aging? Is it depressing? Mustn't it be disheartening to experience a breakdown of all we have strived to identify with as "grownups", seemingly beyond our will?

A novel line, (literally, a line in a novel) once told me that the first fifteen years of life are the ones most vividly recalled throughout life. While later years represent the parts of our independent adulthood and all the events of struggle to become "who we are", it is these earlier years that eventually override our thoughts in simple recollections. For good or bad or both, those times of our lives are not just formative, they are reformative.

Because they reform us, back to who we were. Who were you as a child? We were the essence of who we would become, I think. Time and experience can transform sensitivity into callousness, or stubbornness into mellowness...somewhat and for some time. But our traits never really leave us; they are only managed, subdued or highlighted, to accommodate our realities. While we are influenced by our outer worlds, our inner beings are rarely shaped beyond our recognition.

Don't we all both love and hate that we are who we are, come hell or high water? Don't we all both love and hate the experiential times that shaped us?

The thing about childhood is the innocence. The sponginess, the ability to absorb and never forget the very best and the very worst. Amazing the dark times we all had, the detestable dark times that lighten with the ages. The same increasing years that rob us of so many good things also replenish our spirits with selective recall. Most of the time, when we choose to recall, it is of the things that bring about happiness, and away with the grim reminders.

Not so when we are trying to "find ourselves." When our days revolve around who we want to become, it is as if shedding our past skin is the only way forward. We obsess about the shaping of our formative years, dwelling and blaming and shuddering to break free, to be the forgers of our future way.

And then comes the day a tuna sandwich, potato chips and a glass of Lipton iced tea just sounds so good again. Somehow, the "progression of time" made Mom's lunches passe', even unhealthy. Bologna? Spam? A Sunday fried chicken dinner? All poison now (for some good reason) but do we all know that Mom meant well?? Didn't Dad mean to give us an expression of his fondness for us when he piled us into the back of a pickup truck to take us to the country byways?

How will we feel some years down the road if and when our children mock the foods and experiences we gave them, are loath to pass them on to their own? How will we feel if and when science proves the healthy nourishments and the safety accoutrements we insisted they have were pointless, some even harmful?

Oh yes, what goes around comes around. Always has, always will.

Some of the best wisdom in the world, even unbelievers concede, is Bible-based. I speak of golden rule living, and encouragement that love supersedes all. My personal favorite rule is that bottom line, we must come "as children" to meet our final fates. Whether one considers eternal life a possibility or not, the essence of "coming as a child" maintains that humbling ourselves and acceding to our ultimate parent is akin to acceding to the parent(s) we knew as children. Seemingly harsh, they knew best and required much, toward our better interests.

What movie was that where it was said that most soldiers, when dying on the war field, call out for their mothers, likely their most nurturing parent? What do anguishing scenes like this tell us? For me, it says we are all children at heart, who never lose the need for a parent. The natural order of things dictates we most often go to our graves without one, but believers in the Father Almighty never will.

I thrive on that sustenance. I'm not so old I don't have hope for many more years to come, but already I have reverted to coming as a child to the God I believe in. His "nourishment" (word of the bible) I resisted long enough, because it was averse to the "nourishment" of choices I preferred. Now that I am allowing my "Parent" to direct me again, I love that I don't mind this, and wish I would not have minded it sooner. And, I wish, HOPE that I can be better at it.

It is not the end of my world! It is my happily-ever-after, started in good time. And I JUST KNOW...there WILL be tuna sandwiches and potato chips in heaven!!

"Clutter me Happy"

You're on the right page, the "Less is Plenty" page....but this is a post in defense of CLUTTER.

Why? Because the room I love most in my house--the kitchen--NEEDS to have clutter. I have found, if I can't have kitchen clutter, I can't have an ordered, "Less is Plenty" life.

Anyone serious about not wasting money on convenience foods or eating out, but who still craves lovely mealtimes, (versus porridge)knows this. You cannot have hidden blenders, toasters or accessories that require a ladder or serious stooping to access. You cannot have vital utensils stored in the nether-reaches, or you will never reach for them to make truly good meals every day.

I'm not a lightweight in the kitchen, but I am not any kind of obese, either. I'm lithe enough to yet climb and bend and access, and to see it all as good exercise while I work. But I also have a serious image of a dream-heroine in my mind, a matronly woman who nurtures and loves, who drops all her reservations about society-at-large and who just wants to be friends with everyone through food.

I can't be too skinny for this, and I can't be too orderly. I have tried both. It defies my reality now to believe I ever (as a young, skinny cook) asked my husband to construct a cabinet to hide my kitchen STOVE when not in use, but I did. And he did--he built it for me.

For some months, I lifted wooden doors up top my electric stove to expose the burners, and opened wooden front doors to get a sheet of cookies into the oven. All the time food cooked, horrendously gangly doors stood floppy and agape, a real precious sight in direct argument with my intent to hide a modern appliance I wasn't crazy about the looks of. I got the silly idea from a silly woman in a country-living themed magazine, and if the agent who sold us our homeowner's policy had seen it, he would have crossed us off his list of valued clients.

He didn't see it, and in a few months time, I didn't want to see it either. I shamefacedly admitted to my spouse it was a bad idea, and away it went. But do you think I appreciated the stove in all its exposed glory THEN? No. It was banished to the basement when I found an ancient "Monarch" combination wood-burning AND electric stove, and we (according to insurance regulations) installed it in the other's place. The "Monarch" had the "matronly" look I wanted all along, with a no-need-to-cover-it-up factor involved.

So, it's not that I'm not an "a place for everything and everything in its place" person. I go to great lengths for order, and if there's a problem, I fix it. Or my husband fixes it. Okay, so mostly my husband fixes it.

But.....even if you enjoy cooking or don't mind all meals quick and easy, when you've been swept away (as most of us sometimes are) by alluring meals from the freezer aisle, the deli, or take-out places or restaurants, do you ever tally up what it costs per month to not cook at home, even just some of the time?

I have, during stretches of our family-raising years, and it added up to a modest mortgage payment--at least one common to our neck-o-the-woods.

I've always liked to cook, but I've always also liked to NOT cook, too. I have waffled and wasted between the two extremes for many years, and I even owned a restaurant of my own for some of those years. Even as I gave surplus food away to my friends and neighbors, I sometimes just wanted to eat someone else's cooking, and we often did.

We did it often enough and long enough to know this: with few exceptions, food away from home is mostly not that good, overpriced, and rarely lingers for favorable in the mind. And it nearly NEVER lingers in the memory like Mom's food does.

I did have the best example for this, growing up. My mom managed healthy meals and general sustenance for a family of ten on a limited income. We never went hungry and we always went "delicious." I love to imitate her meals, to this day. My dad may have earned less overall than many other fathers we knew, but his hard work and Mom's creativity and enthusiasm for a good meal always provided our family a great sense of plenty.

As it has through the ages, "plenty" comes from a "waste not" mindset. If our sky has a ceiling, we figure what we can do with less of so that we can have plenty in more important areas. In recent years we definitely adjusted to eating out far less, and saw an improvement in our dollar "plenty."

Funny, but now, when my spouse and I CAN eat out more, and at least more "conveniently", the thrill of it is gone. We love this sense of plenty, in extra-good food, extra dollars, extra choices in leisure for other areas. Mostly, we like the sense of plenty in being able to do things for our children and grandchildren; it is the greatest worth "plenty" can exemplify.

BUT. I NEED the clutter in my kitchen to be efficient at what I do. The things I use regularly have to be at hand. With the counter-space of a "less is plenty" sized home, this means things show, they are not hidden, they are ready to be used. They do not get in my way, they MAKE the way for me to get things done.

"LESS" in the kitchen I cannot do, and for one other reason. In keeping with my matronly role model, I love to immerse myself in the "feel" of her aura, and era. I want to cook with the things she cooked with!! They are not all practical, but they are beautiful. They are ART. Vintage cutting boards are my backsplash, and vintage tools and kitchen accessories are my inspiration. Most I have used, many I use often. All are ready and set to go in apocalyptic times!!

Does my defense of clutter make sense, to the spirit of "less is plenty"? What in your life, do you sometimes think you have too much of, but then say NO, I'm good, thank you very much!? Please comment, either here or on my less is plenty Facebook page, and thanks for reading!!

These Plates Were Made for Using

(More, new perspective on my favorite "Sterbuck Farm" Story)

In MY dictionary, if you looked up the meaning of "bittersweet" there would have to be a picture of my favorite pretty plates alongside.

Let me get the "bitter" out of the way first.

Although I'm happily using these vintage plates for everyday now, it is because I have come to a somewhat sad conclusion: I'm not going to outlast these dishes. They will be the last set I buy, the last set I will use. For a person who has "changed out" dish patterns all her married life, this is a little bittersweet.

But I have a bigger number of this pattern than I ever dreamed possible, and that is very sweet. It is a number bigger than can break in a routine course of use, and I just don't expect anything but the routine here. I'm not going to give them away, because I love them. And I'm not looking for, only hoping against, any act of God or "downfall" in the kitchen that would ruin any significant number of them.

In fact, I've always thought it was a special act of God who brought them to me in the first place. And NO, I'm not being dramatic.

The pattern IS one of the first that I truly enjoyed, actually, in my married life. The problem was it was just one single dish I found, at a flea market, for one thin dime. Oh, that I could have found more, I would have paid their price and brought them home decades ago, as a young mom and wife, trying in earnest to make her house a home.

For about a decade, I never saw another one like it. It must be its gorgeousness, I thought, that made this so. Pretty in pink and blue, I was covetous of more, seeking the pattern out evermore.

Alas, not to be, or so it seemed. I had found it in Colorado, where we lived for fourteen years, the last few in a financial and spiritual downturn for our little family. In crisis, we left, to work and save in California, where our families were. The plan was to eventually move into an also dispirited farmhouse in Wisconsin, one that had known thirty years of abandonment and revealed it openly, no matter how lovely its surroundings were, and even in its very yearning heartbeat.

It still wanted a family. We earnestly wanted a home. When we finally arrived in 1988, we joined together tentatively. "Sterbuck Farm" justifiably
wondered about what we were made of. It had been rejected countless times. Its story, we learned, was one of many "leavings" and in truth, from the moment we pulled in with the moving van, we considered doing so ourselves. The dream of it had been so romantic an adventure, its reality disappointed as mostly daunting and fearsome. It would wait us out, and we could do nothing but try to see it through.

And then the plate turned up, in its very soil, that very first spring. We were planting a garden, and up it came with a shovel, whole and perfect.

Can you blame us for the significance we saw in the pattern that emerged from the earth? It seemed to say, "Don't give up, don't feel dispirited. You are meant to be here. You are meant to give it the good, more cheerful try."

We needed to hear that. We needed to pick up the inspired pace. We needed to quit with the dejection and look up, look around. The farmhouse was habitable, and sound. It sat center of a work-of-art landscape that only God could be the signer of. The folks in our "neighborhood" were friendly and had reached out to us, and our little family had each other. We had to see the positive, and this THING, this physical item that I had searched far and wide for, in places much more likely and appropriate, had emerged from the ground in the middle of our "nowhere."

So it spoke to us all. We definitely perked up that day, knowing the "message" was something worth sustaining.

Our new neck-of-the-woods proved to be a region of the country where "my" dish pattern had obviously, in a previous era, been very popular. One shop keeper said he thought pieces were given away in oatmeal boxes, with others available for purchase either on store shelves or by order. In the late eighties, I started finding pieces everywhere, reasonably priced. Still perfect, still beautiful, to my eye and heart, so I picked up every one I came across. Close to our 25th wedding anniversary, I found a whole box of them complete with two platters and a creamer and sugar, vegetable servers, and much more. For a time, I stopped buying them, thinking what I'd accumulated we rarely used, and that we might never, really.

Craziness.

Why not start using them? I had said I should, and finally I did, for special occasions. Then a funny thing happened. Just like I hoped they would, they put me back in time. They put me back to the days of Sunday dinners and matronly mothers or grandmothers serving them up, of warm, steamy kitchens with aromas flowing out-of-doors, like the Johnny Cash lyrics (Sunday Morning Coming Down)"I walked across the street and caught the Sunday smell of someone frying chicken...and Lord, it took me back to something that I'd lost."

Ah, YES. Something many of us have lost...that Sunday dinner feeling, or of any lovingly prepared meal, capable of uniting families and sustaining not just bodies but souls, fit for memorializing a "feeling" unto the ages.

In her long-beloved series Laura Ingalls Wilder did this memorializing like no one else. When I was growing up in the sixties in Southern California, her "meal descriptions" transported me to another place and time, so that somehow, I wanted to capture those times and make them my own. It helped that my own mother had a "Laura" mindset about good meals around a family table, and between all such examples another kitchen nurturer was born. No. Modern Day. Apologies for loving the kitchen!!

I can't recall the plates my mother used, and I don't know that Laura's would have been quite this decorative. But I think both would have appreciated them as gems. I think both would have admired their pretty appeal, and that they were easily enough obtained so that they could serve for everyday, and yet suffice for special, too. I think both would have embraced, as I have, the gentle knife and fork lines that have lovingly scarred my plates. These creases, like the lines on a face, represent love forward, love accepted eagerly and love remembered. And no, I'm not being dramatic!

A plate is just a "thing", it's true. At the shop I owned for many years, I used many sets for serving, for selling, for decorating, for bringing home and using. My customers were as guilty as I was of loving pretty dishes; even the men noted and appreciated them. So it is something of a mystery to me that I am sure now

, I don't need another dish set in my life. I don't want another dish pattern in my life.

This is the one that makes me feel most like Laura, and honors most the homey legacy my mother also left behind. It's the one my kids know is nearest and dearest to my heart. And it is already the only one that my grandchildren have known in this household.

It is the one that reminds me a past I never lived, and it is the one I will take to my grave. Crushed, and mingled with my ashes. And yes, I AM being dramatic.

Small Miracles

I'm not sure I believe in happenstance, or coincidence. I see things more as God-intended, or God-allowed. I do believe in miracles, that big ones are more precious by virtue of their rarity, but that small ones happen often because the Maker likes to inject joy into our days, and his.

"Yes, I Will Try"

Tacos are

the recipe that inducted me into the cooking hall of fame--in the corridors of my imagination, at least.

I was reminded of this when I recently heard, for the first time, a story of an "aha" moment in my Grandma Rosa's life, a moment related to her "fame" in the annals of her cooking history, too.

In the late fifties, it wouldn't have been called such a thing, but oh YES, an aha moment it was.

It started with my grandma's widowhood. A young mother of four children, she lost our grandpa to an automobile accident when he was just thirty years old. Grandma was just thirty, too. Left to raise her little ones alone, Grandma's horizon loomed daunting. She was a Spanish-speaking immigrant in California, a product of her upbringing, raised to believe in marriage, home and family, and the husband who would provide it all.

She depended on the man in her life for livelihood, and her job was to keep the home fires burning.

In the maelstrom of grieving and shock, Grandma couldn't immediately imagine what to do, where to turn.

Another man in her life stepped up to the plate. A relative with his own family took her, my dad and his three sisters into a tiny, earth-floored shelter in his own back yard. He helped them with food and the basics as he he could, and arranged for the little family to go north each summer for grueling months of agricultural picking.

My dad was five years old when my grandpa passed, with a toddler sister and two above him by a few slight years. In 2015, I have a five-year-old granddaughter we shelter from an hour in the sunlight, with sunscreen slathering, a water bottle, and little to no exertion. Back in the day pampering like this was unheard of, but knowing that still hardly tempers the reality my grandma and her little family knew.

In fact, after a few seasons of this, Grandma suffered an excruciating injury. She didn't go back, and neither did she allow her children to. Instead the family pulled together and made their way into the ensuing years, all the way to adulthood. My dad eventually joined the Marines, and my aunts, one by one, married.

Their coming of age proved a mixed-bag of emotions for Grandma. Yes, they were grown and a worry lifted. But together they were a team, forever her help and more so as the years went by. Now that they would have their own families to put first, the day came she asked aloud, "What am I going to do now? I have to do think of something I can do for myself. I have to come up with a plan."

In that day and place, "Cordelia" Knott of the now-famed Knott's Berry Farm was selling chicken dinners to the locals, at amazing pace. Grandma took note of this, and the light bulb in her head sparked her "aha" moment. She said aloud: "If Mrs. Knott can sell chicken dinners, I can sell tacos!!"

An adventurous and intimidating thought, all at once.

Grandma told herself, "I think I can do it." And then, "Yes, I will try."

Grandma by then was a property owner, and so she went to the bank to borrow money. She moved into a house behind the house she raised her children in, and the work began to transform the family home into a restaurant.

Early on, Grandma was overwhelmed with the commitment. Her girls pitched in, but babies were being born, attentions were being spread thin and exhaustion setting in. For a time, "cooking" literally got shoved to the back burner, while Grandma pondered that maybe her plan wouldn't work, after all.

Grandma soon found she had little room for pondering. Bureaucracy reared its imposing head, when the city notified her that her building, now commercial, would have to have business conducted within its walls, or its walls would have to be torn down.

In a scramble, Grandma pulled it all together. Her sons-in-laws kept their day jobs, but agreed to devote after-hours to promoting and building up "El Rosal", my grandma's namesake. All three of her daughters, Bea, Nina, and Cecilia, contributed the very best of their work ethic and enthusiasm toward the venture. They put together a substantive menu, chockfull of favorite family recipes for traditional Mexican dishes, as well as many American standards.

One false start almost led to two, until a popular, long-established local diner decided to shut its doors. Then, that eatery's biggest customer base, the "Auto-netics" factory, was suddenly impelled to give El Rosal a try. Very soon, addicts akin to modern-day "foodies" teemed on the doorsteps of my grandma's restaurant, in numbers too big to ignore. On the weeknights and days, couples and families filled the place, and every weekday (except closed Mondays) a combination of all spilled out onto the generous patio.

I came of age at "El Rosal," working there from the time I was twelve years old (my Social Security application just affirmed this!), ceasing about the time I got married. Working with my cousins, aunts, uncles, and siblings wasn't just a good WORK experience, it was the best, happiest mesh of many diverse memories.

Just before I got that Social Security card, I was an eleven year old in my own family's home. My "aha" moment, like Grandma Rosa's, centered on TACOS, and it too, led me to believe I could and should open up a restaurant...but way later.

It all started with the "Jamaica" (pronounced "Ha-my-uh-ka"), a churchyard festival, oriented to the Mexican culture, in a Santa Ana neighborhood. My dad LOVED to go there, for the tacos. He loved to order a waxy cardboard "boat" of them, sit at a picnic table and savor every juicy, drippy, spicy bite. He always reserved a corner of a tortilla to wipe up at the end the juices and shreds of lettuce or melty cheese that got away.

Oh, how he loved those tacos. I did too, and we didn't have them often enough; the festival was a seasonal thing. My mom made good tacos, but for some reason they paled next to the vibrancy of the "Jamaica" ones, even though no one I knew (then or now) could surpass her in any other delicious thing she ever brought to the table.

One evening I asked her if I could try to make supper. She paused only as if to SEEM like she was pausing, and then an amused, "Yeah, well, I guess..."

Somewhat nonchalantly, but also on-the-ball, as if the offer might quick get away.

I was always observant of my mom's cooking. Eleven was too old to "Captain Crunch" or "Franco-American" anything, and so serious tacos it would be. Using what we had on hand, I kicked it up a notch with the juices and the spice, mostly. I pulled my tastes buds back to their immersion in the tacos at the Jamaica, and I put in every single thing and more I thought those tacos had.

When my Dad tasted his first taco that evening, his eyes popped wide and beamed big. Not one to gush, he gushed. I was afraid my mom would slap him (or me)up one side the head, for his near-swooning, "Luisa...these tacos taste JUST like the ones at the JAMAICA!!"

Not a lot of reaction from Mom, but at least we had our heads left. Despite her toned-down response, the moment was like a passing of the "taco torch", to me. I made them many more times in the future, and other meals, too. Mom caught a break now and then; what wasn't there to like about that?

How Dad reacted to those tacos said a lot to me. Tasty food doesn't just subdue hunger for the body, it enlivens the spirit. It is not just about fuel, but about fueling anticipation, and joy. A good meal doesn't just vanish off the plate, it stays in the mind and spurs the senses into wanting to revisit, time and again. Even while resisting excess all the way!

Decades later my taco-inspired "aha" moment played on me much as Grandma Rosa's did for her. In my time, I thought: "If Grandma Rosa could sell tacos, I can sell....chicken salad."

Chicken salad was a specialty of my mom's, very simple, very delicious. I wasn't in California anymore, I was in the Midwest, with a more "bread basket" audience, and so really yummy chicken salad on bread, and later on in a "fold", otherwise known as a thick homemade tortilla, it was.

But it didn't start out chicken salad. It started out everything-typical-Midwestern fare, with a little "Mexican" thrown in. It started out, as it did for my Grandma, overwhelming from the git-go. In a very short time I was retreating, wanting to dig a hole and throw myself right in.

I did pull back, and let someone else take it over. That didn't last either, and just when I was lolly-gagging, taking my time to think things through, bureaucracy reared its imposing head. "Insurance" told me I had to get in there and do something, or "Insurance" would UN-insure me.

Oops. New plan. New enthusiasm. New resolve. I served the chicken salad, and the chicken-salad-thing worked out.

Very recently, my aunts Bea and Nina, now in their eighties and nineties, were interviewed by the Placentia, California library. A PBS segment on the history of the town is in the works, with my Grandma Rosa and "El Rosal" a part of it.

Oh, how I longed to be there. For days, I reflected to my husband my happy thoughts of Grandma, the restaurant, my aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings. Finally he said, for heaven's sake, can't you call your aunts and at least tell them what those times meant to you?

Yes, I think I can do that. Yes, I will try. One night of conversations, one night of reflecting on many years. If it can be said, I wore my heart on my sleeve those phone calls. In the end, my aunts KNEW how much I wanted to be there, and what those years meant to me.

And one new, amazing "aha" moment: I never knew I had relived (a very small part) of my Grandma Rosa's history. I didn't know it at all. I only knew I loved the times I spent with her, aside from the restaurant, at her home, spending the night, going to an ice cream parlor, taking a Sunday drive. I cherished my "alone" time with her, as I know my cousins and siblings did theirs.

I remember so many things about my grandma, but there were things I couldn't know, either. How enlightening to me that we had a little bit of shared history, each in our own time. I am so grateful to the graces above I did not suffer some of her darker experiences, but I love the "unity" of knowing now we were once in a uniquely similar circumstance, and we each came out alright with our resourcefulness.

And somehow I know now: she was the force behind the whisper..."I think I can do it. Yes, I will try."

There Once was a Girl

There once was a girl named Darlene. For as long as she could remember, she loved God, but hovered in the kitchen.

She knew God only as her church relayed, from well-intended lessons in a Sunday School courtyard, shallow in depth but rich in doctrine too complex for her to absorb.

And yet she knew Him, praying to Him in earnest, every day and most especially in the nights, under the covers, full of hope. She prayed for a most big thing, and let all the little things go unmentioned. If only the big thing came to pass, all the little things would fall into place.

Sadly, the big thing never came to be. She prayed and prayed many years, coming to a conclusion: the world was just so big, with so many prayers being said all at once, by people more appealing than she, to a God who loved some more than others, no matter what any Sunday School teacher said, ever.

Rejection taken. Comfort sought--where else to go but the kitchen? Not so much to eat the food there--although her mother's cooking was lovely, indeed--but for the distraction. The distraction of her own food creations, the appreciation for the creation by the consumers of her "art", the pleasures served to all.

Without a backward glance, the comfort of the kitchen assumed her loftiest goals. What could be better, really? You feed the people you love with the finesse of a "craft", she thought. They love you for it. They give you strokes for it. It tastes good. It feels good. It nourishes body and spirit and it is not the worst thing in the world to be remembered for.

And so she cooked for the "home folks" first, her mother and father and siblings. Then for the man she married, the two of them alone in a sweet little apartment, and eventually the children they raised together in a sweet, bigger home. She cooked for the neighbors and for friends, and she sought lonely people too, who had no urges to cook big meals for themselves but whose eyes lit up one hundred watts when she came bearing a plate.

Eventually she even cooked for the masses, if the subdued masses she could tend to with the loving attention-to-detail that mattered all her life. She made a small business of it, but carried it out as if it were for the family she loved the most. Because she so loved doing what she did, it had to be done in the same earnestness, whoever she did it for.

And so the girl didn't learn much more than to cook well, and she never really cared. It and its reverberations fulfilled her. No good person ever pointed out to her the drabness of her life, and no good person ever purported that her life should represent further fruition in more significant ways.

But for all the self-assuredness her joy in the kitchen brought, it elicited little for confidence in love from her God. In this she still felt small, a meek, insignificant being. From this, she derived He might still love her later, with the intensity of eternal love, where and how it counted the most. For this end, it was well and good to be insignificant now. It was well and good to believe and trust, and not to dwell on any one thing lacking in the here and now.

A life in the kitchen, thought Darlene, also exemplified her acquiescence to isolation. It quenched a thirst to be away from the world-at-large, in its simple satisfactions with her small hub of humanity. It separated her from serving in worldly capacity, but she never struggled with the humility of loving God and accepting His will for her life. He caused her to love her life, and even to believe fully that other women who lived very worldly lives also loved theirs.

Ah, but from the beginning of time, the world comes to all doorsteps, in one way or another. Stuff happens, and the distraction of a comforting kitchen at times played second fiddle to other facets of Darlene's reality. A loved child's circumstances and other adversities with the home and family made assembling a grilled cheese sandwich almost too much to contemplate. For these times, she asked, "Okay, so what now, dear God? I wasn't made for this stuff, this facing-down-the-world stuff. I always just wanted to stay in the kitchen."

At that, she felt God nod His head and say, "Yes, I made you for the kitchen. It's good if you always found the kitchen a comforting place to be. Now you just have to figure whether you can retreat to the kitchen and call these matters good, or if you need to get out of the kitchen so that you can get back to it in peace."

In peace? Darlene wondered. Does peace mean retreat? In a sense, she had prided her life on the humility of retreat. If she had confidence in her life, it was in knowing her place for the here and now, in her patience and willingness to await the greater glory of God later, eternally. How would she figure NOW that her responses should be anything BUT peaceful and retreating?

And so, she stepped back from her woes, much as the little girl did long before. She ventured to settle back into her routines, only to list as a sea vessel lists in waters overwhelming. She grappled to right herself, stunned by the need to leave the kitchen, to not retreat and sink.

The causes that took her from the kitchen had nothing to do with the kitchen. Swept out of her comfort zone, she buoyed herself in treacherous, unfamiliar waters, a being hardly knowing how to swim. Each time, she likened the wildly floundering chaos to a childhood experience of nearly drowning with her older sister, Cindy. The two, on a family day at the beach, innocently waded into erratic waters, carried unto thrashing panic, saved by two strangers, unafraid and appointed by God.

Motherhood and more brought the world knocking at her door, bringing its maelstrom of discomfort to her. But these things brought more too, love unlike any she'd known before, a sense of un-self, and longing for justice beyond her inner borders. She found her outside-the-kitchen calling.

How now, Lord, do I answer this calling? She appealed to Him as when a child, with a new, and almost-young, extended self. How do I still these quaking knees, slow my racing heart, calm the churning flutter of my insides? I was not cut of cloth for this, she thought, but you have woven these threads, these people into my life, and I need to cloak them in the love You made me capable of.

Somehow, she muddled through, one angst at a time. Along her way, she said, I do thank God for one angst at a time the magnitude of which is bearable, for I know of people broken by many angsts all at once, who do not bear up at all or who in their tumult put me to shame with their faithfulness in His intent.

I can get through one tumult at a time, she said, and she did. The Lord saw her progress, and bore her up. He began to show her His sense of humor. He placed a donut shop in her way, one she least expected, on a "lost" path, a dreamed-of donut shop she'd given up hope of ever seeing, for a reward of "following through" in crisis. He placed a man ahead of her in line at a counter, whose telling of his story provided her a "light bulb moment"--the insight she needed for an adversity she was contemplating solution to. Her Lord God gave her signs and words everywhere, too many to count, too many to talk about.

But talk about them she would, for this was a part of His plan. It is really true, she finally absorbed, that God is here for me, for everyone who turns to Him and who believes, in the good times and the bad. We will have courage to share His words and to meet our ends, because we turn to Him in need. We will open up His Book, searching, and each time, the page we land on will say something just for us and our moment.

With each happy day and each unhappy day, His grace seeped deeper into her being. He did not chastise her for the years she retreated, the years she acceded to others who maintained and sustained their faith as children, who never weakened and only added layers to their foundation.

She loved a time especially, when, opening His Book to "land" on a page she needed, came to the stories of the disciples who followed and faltered, followed and faltered in their faith toward the Son of God. A miracle a moment, they seemed to need. Jesus said as much, asking in essence and in exasperation: What is wrong with you people? How many times do you need proof of what I can do??

These were the days of healing and miracles, of feeding multitudes with five loaves of bread and two fish, of calming an oceanic storm to soothe panicking men. On and on Lord Jesus performed convincing feats, and on and on the impressions proved fleeting.

Darlene read this last, in her own moments of backtracking in faith and trust, over her trial of the time. These words indeed were meant for me to land upon this day, she thought. To think, His words have always been here, and instead, for so many years I read cookbooks.

Cookbooks in retreat, but going forward, not so much....

"Footnote" to this entry...the very day following Darlene's "landing" on Jesus's chastisement to His disciples for their lack of more sustained faith, she was driving a country road home from town, listening to a CD. Almost home, it hardly seemed worth changing out its "wearing thin" songs, so she just flicked it over to the radio. The song playing? Just enough time before pulling into the driveway,

to hear in entirety, "Have a Little Faith in Me." Bon Jovi singing, perfect words straight from the whisper of God.