Blue Yonder

Purple. Hull. Peas.

Just three little words. That's all it took to send me back in time. Three little words hastily painted in black, on a whitewashed board, "Purple Hull Peas." 

 

Cars sped by the little stand and the little old woman, barely visible behind her bushel baskets of peas. Perhaps those passersby did not know the meaning of the words, but I do. I know what purple hull peas mean. 

They mean summer in East Texas. 

They mean swatting at mosquitos and swapping stories on the back porch. 

 

They mean purple thumbs and forefingers for days and days. 

They mean well worn hands teaching eager new ones the time honored art of shelling. 

 

They mean a familiar "clink, plink, plonk," as they hit the enamel pan - it might as well be Popo's fiddle, playing our song, the way the sound of those peas makes my heart dance.

 My Granny was even more excited than I was. She rocked and shelled, smiling all the while, and told my fellas about the old days when her mama and daddy would treat her and her brothers to a drive in movie, providing they would agree to shell peas while they watched. 

 

She told them how her Daddy, my Popo, loved those peas so much that he ate them with every meal but breakfast for as long as she could remember. 

She told them that the cows considered those leftover hulls a treat of the first order.

 She told my men too, that they were "world class shellers" and made them promise to "sit and shell awhile" with her again next summer. 

We shelled, we did, for five hours (well, the Granny and the Mama did anyhow). Five hours in which a thread that runs through my Granny's childhood, and my mothers, and mine as well, was woven into the fabric of my own little men's lives so that one day, far from now, three little words, "purple hull peas" will mean,  "home, family, comfort and love."   

Memories Of An Olfactory Nature

Do you have certain smells that take you back?

The smell of grease and gasoline make me think that my Popo might have just left the room.

When I wash the dishes with Palmolive, I can see my Momo's hands in the dishwater.

I love those moments, because even though my Momo and Popo are long gone, their smells linger like an embrace.

There are other smells too though...

If I happen in a building that uses Simple Green cleaner, I'm 16 again, and cleaning out dog kennels at my first job. (okay second, if you count the brief stint as a grocery store bagger).

The scent of permanent markers brings to mind that odd, broody girl that sat next to me in biology class. She would scribble with one, fiendishly on her bookcover then lay her head on her desk and huff the class away. Good lord. Every time I smell a Sharpie, I wonder where she is now.

I wonder then, what scents my boys and I are trading.

In the years to come, I wonder if it is their shampoo that will bring to mind their towel wrapped, wiggling wet bodies. Or will it be waffles cooking that makes me recall the crashing, slamming, giggling mess that is breakfast with three boys? Or goodness, it might be that entering a public bathroom will remind me of the days when, no matter how often I sprayed the place down with bleach, I could never remove the yellow smell that lingers in the loo where three men do what they do.

Then, what scents will make them think of me? Will it be the whiff of my perfume, that reaches them as they pass by some woman on a busy street? Will it be the fabric softener on their pillows that makes them think of Mama tucking them in at night?

Or maybe, just maybe, if I'm lucky, it will be lavender.

After all, it is lavender on the hands that wipe their tears, brush their hair, button their shirts and pinch their squishy little cheeks.

Lavender in the garden where we dig and play. My boys like to break off the leaves and rub themselves all over. Then, they walk around sniffing themselves. (I try not to think about that girl in biology class when they do this.)

It is lavender, trailing behind the sweet wind that ruffles through the curtains and runs through the house saying, "Spring is here! Spring is here!".

If I could weave memories for them, I would fold them and tuck them away with lavender sachets, for a day far from now when they need a little mama embrace.

p.s. If you have been kind enough to leave me a sweet comment or question, please know that I will get back to you one of these days, but at the moment, I'm still without a functioning keyboard. I get stolen minutes here and there on my husband's, for posting, but not much more than that. I also haven't been able to comment on YOUR blogs or Flickr photos, but have been looking on silently. Consider me your silent fan :-)

Middle of the Night Thoughts

Computer is still on the fritz. It's gasping for breath. Locks up every few minutes. This means that I'm only able to sneak the odd moment on husband's computer when he's not on it, working, or when the kids aren't on it doing their school stuff.

Bah!

And THAT means that I've not yet finished making match ups for the book swap. Soon friends. Soon. I promise. You might as well know that I'm never, EVER on time for anything. Ever. I try, I really do, but it's best you dispense with any thoughts of promptness, where I'm concerned. Just assume that I'll be late, and then, on the rare occasion that I manage to be on time or (shutter to think it), early, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

I'm not proud. I'm just realistic.

Anyhow. As if the computer issues weren't bad enough, my sweet oldest boy woke me up at 4 AM yesterday with a raging fever. Meds would not bring it down, and then the doctor gave the words I feared would come: "It's strep."

That, after a hideous assault on the poor boy with a 3 foot long Q-tip. He gave that doctor a run for her money thought. He was not opening that mouth of his. When she finally managed it, he threw up blackberry smoothie all over creation.

Lord.

Before all that though, in the wee hours before dawn, snuggling my burning boy, I thought, for the thousandth time, of something my grandmother told me during our recent visit. It was apropos of nothing, but thats how you think in the dark morning hours... all floaty and deep-like.

The story in question came from my Granny after I'd prodded her with "tell me about"s until she finally settled into story telling mode. She talked about how an African American woman, Seeley, used to come help out with various things. like their wash. She'd carry the loads of clothes to a "spring down in the hollow" and boil a big pot of water, which she would use to scrub and rinse their clothes. My granny talked about how, as a little girl, she had watched Seeley, and marveled at how big and strong her arms seemed, wringing every last drop of water out of their wash.

Granny said that she used to love to hear her mother (my Momo) and Seeley laugh and talk and work together. She said they were great friends and would cut up, gossip, sing, and joke while their hands flew and their backs bent over their work.

The thing is though, Seeley never came in the house. In fact, at dinner time (lunch), my Momo would take both her lunch and Seeley's lunch outside to eat. Together.

Granny said that Seeley never ate in the house.

So there I lay wondering. Why? Did my Momo not invite her in because she was black? I find that really hard to believe, especially, considering how close my Granny says they were. And, my great grandmother is pretty notorious for not caring one wit about anyone's opinion but her own. So, it's not real likely she would have "done the proper thing".

Maybe she invited Seeley in, but the woman wasn't comfortable with straying from the social laws of the day? Maybe my Momo never asked because she didn't want to force Seeley to make an uncomfortable choice? Maybe, maybe they just liked to eat together under the pine trees. I don't know. I try to imagine my Momo dishing up plates of food and carrying them outside to sit and chat with Seeley. What was going through her mind? I guess I'll never know for sure.

I do know this. My Momo was a strong and good woman. She was tough and took no nonsense. She was full of laughter and spunk. I know enough of her to know that she would have been a good friend.

I don't mean to gloss over her failings. She was human. What I mean to say, is that I know she did the best she could with what she had. So, I believe that taking her dinner with Seeley was her way of saying that she was no better than anyone else.

I'm hoping that one day, when my sons, my grand children and my great grandchildren are looking back on my life and my choices, that they will offer me the same grace. When something doesn't add up, or rubs the wrong way, when the pieces just won't fit together, I hope that they will have known me well enough, that I will have lived in such a way, that they can trust that my intentions, even in my failings, were good.

I hope too that wherever Seeley's family is, they know that her sweet nature is still being talked about, even today.

I hope that she and my Momo are finally getting to put their feet up, laugh and swap stories to their hearts' content.

Popo's Hands

My goodness! It seems I struck a nerve with my dusty floor!

I am so grateful to know that I'm not the only one out there who is risking her "Housekeeper of the Year" title in favor a little creative down time after hours. I'm glad too, to know that I'm in such good company. Thank you all, for all your encouragement, your laughter and your sweet words. Each of your comments is like finding money in the pocket of last year's winter coat - unexpected joy.

You've got me thinking about how sometimes it is our imperfections that turn out to be our most endearing qualities.

My Popo, my great grandfather and husband to my Momo, comes to mind.

I can distinctly remember sitting on my purple shag carpet at 12 years old. I was drawing, and happened to look down at my hands. I noticed that the top section of my middle finger is slightly bent toward my ring finger. I was instantly horrified.

See, my Popo had this horribly bent middle finger. It was turned at the end, like a little miniature hockey stick. His hands were gnarly, browned and leathery, and while I loved him, the thought that I might have inherited his hands, that mine might, in time, grow twisted and disfigured like his... well I sobbed. A lot.

For days afterward, weeks even, I would stare at that finger, watching for even the slightest evidence that it might be worsening. I completely obsessed over it, and never once did it enter my vain little head that his hands probably looked that way because of hard work. He was born poor, he worked a farm his whole life, and owned a garage too. He probably broke that finger and didn't have the money to have it properly set.

I've been trying to think of ways to help my little men connect with my Popo. It's been hard though because I can't really remember him saying a whole lot. He was a quiet man who led a simple life.

I remember seeing him drive the tractor. I remember his smell - grease and gasoline. I remember that he told jokes that I didn't understand. I remember that lots of people loved him.

(That's him on the far right, leaning up against the car)

I can't conjure up his face without a smile on it. He smoked Camels, drank Pearl beer and played guitar, bent finger and all.

He liked to dip graham crackers in coffee at breakfast. He watched Family Fued when he came in for lunch.

He drove me to town in his bubble fendered old Ford and bought me icees in the summertime.

The only time my Popo ever raised his voice to me was when he caught me being unkind to my cousin Alison.

He didn't say much, but his life spoke volumes about love of family, hard work and the value of friendship and laughter.

So my boys and I hung out under the car and talked about what mechanics do.

We planted black eyed peas,like my Popo did (the rest are soaking now, for tomorrow's dinner, or, supper, as he would have called it). We talked about how farmers feed their families, and us too.

I showed my boys my bent finger and told them that it is one of my best features, because it reminds me that real beauty is in the work accomplished and love shown through our hands, not in the hands themselves.

Hope your weekend is filled with wonder!

Breakfast with Momo

Our recent trip to East Texas has brought so many memories of my great grandmother to the forefront of my mind. At this moment, there's an old Adam's Almond Extract bottle, filled with red dirt, on my kitchen windowsill. That's how much I miss her and her home. I need her dirt, the dirt that used to get under my fingernails when I played in her yard and helped in her garden as a child.

My boys were so astonished, as they always are, by the quality of East Texas dirt. First of all, it's RED. And second, it's DIRT! Not rock, DIRT! In Austin, if you dig a half inch down, you hit rock. Many of our roads are carved through feet upon feet of it, which really, is a sight to behold. My guys were thrilled beyond measure though, just to get to dig.

Anyhow, I have been wanting, for some time now, to make a family book about my Great Grandma, my Momo, with my boys, like the one we made about Pop, but it has felt kind of overwhelming. There are just so many things about her that I want my guys to know. I haven't really known where to begin.

It's kind of happened organically though. Luke wanted a sewing project, so we settled on a small quilt.

This is his handiwork:

Um, okay, so, it's a little abstract, but I love it. More importantly, he loves it. He was very proud, even more so when I suggested that we use it to wrap our bread at dinnertime.

I told him that he comes from quilting stock, and showed him this picture of my Momo making our wedding quilt:

We looked at all the tiny handstitches on that quilt, as well as one she made for me when I was little. She made them for all her kids, each of her 12 grandkids and her great grand kids too. She was quilting well into her 80s.

I started showing my guys some old photos of my Momo:

That's her in the swanky black dress, with her arm draped over the wheel. That's my Popo beside her. I think that the shadow on the ground was her brother taking the photo, and the other woman was his girlfriend. Super cool, weren't they?

I told my fellas all about what a good cook she was. She used to greet us with enough food to feed a small army. Tamales, cornbread, turnip greens, black eyed peas, chicken and dumplings, tea cakes, fritters.

"What's a fritter?" they wanted to know.

So of course, we had to make some.

In case you aren't versed in the art of the fritter, it's refrigerated biscuit dough, flattened, with a dollop of jam (fig preserves in this case), folded over, sealed with the prongs of a fork, and then fried and dusted with powdered sugar.

I was not prepared for how the smell of them sent me reeling. If I closed my eyes, I could have been 8 years old in my Momo's kitchen.

We put one of her quilts on our picnic table, brought out her old china (which gets prettier everytime I see it), and had a breakfast of fritters, photos and stories.

I told them how my Momo named cows, how she had this laugh that shook her whole body, how she loved to dance and how she had these closets that connected her bedroom to the guest bedroom... so good for hide and seek. I told them how she didn't have a refrigerator until well after she was married. I told them how she loved to play Trouble, and Rummy Q and Uno. So then we played Uno and ate more fritters in her honor. She would have liked that, I think. I can almost hear her laughing.

Pop and The Hinky Dinky

With our first son, we had a middle name picked out well before we had a first name decided. My husband is Eric Charles, after his grandfather, Charles Thomas, aka Pop. It was a no brainer, our boy would be _____ Charles. (General Charles? Major Charles? River Charles? Peabody Earnest Hemmingway Poe Charles? :-)

Not too long after our Luke Charles arrived, I asked his grandmother if she would mind jotting down some memories of his namesake and scrounging up a few photos for his baby book. She obliged, and because I had no idea what to do after that, they've been tucked away for some 6 years now, as memories often are.

I have been longing for a while though to figure out some way to make my boys' heritage more real to them, to drag the photos and heirlooms out of hiding and make them a part of our everyday life. Only, I haven't been real sure how to help such little people understand the power and importance of family that to them, are simply stern black and white images of strangers. Your father's mother's father.... your father's mother's sister's uncle's friend's neighbor?

I think though, that I might have finally come up with something that could work well for our family. Something that I think will hold some tangible meaning for little people.

I bought a mini scrapbook, and we put Pop's photo in the hole on the cover. I slowly read over the notes that Grandmother had made for Luke, pausing to hear their questions and thoughts. (What are ammunitions? - after hearing that he worked in factory during World War II. What is carpentry? - after hearing that he learned this skill from his father.)

The boys chose the parts that they deemed important and dictated them for me. (just ignore the cruddy handwriting please... it's the thought, right?) They added their own illustrations.

A few things spoke to my men:

They noted that he had all girls, and while he loved all four, he was very excited to welcome a grandson. "Mommy maybe we'll have some girls for you to play with." (Or grandsons, I said, spoiling grandsons would be wonderful too!)

Pop owned a small but very popular store, the "Hinky Dinky." They thought this was super cool, so we spent half the day playing store. They put price tags on everything within reach. They gave thought to their inventory and marketing. They decided to open a lunch counter. They debated whether or not they would make customers pay to use the restrooms. They connected, in some small way with their Pop's life.

They also noted that Pop used to like to get all his family together and grill burgers. Most important, and endearing in their eyes, he LOVED ice cream, especially peach. In fact, he gave their Daddy his first ever taste of the stuff.

So, of their own volition, they decided that we needed to find a good recipe for peach ice cream, make some burgers, and invite Grandmother over to see our book and share more stories about Pop.

Bingo! I think we're getting it!

Their Daddy remembered that Pop liked to carry around M&Ms in his pocket and sometimes even mailed him a small package of the candies. The boys really liked this idea and thought it would be fun to carry on the tradition by making little packages of M&Ms for their most loved friends and family. (Note how our memory making seems inextricably linked to our tastebuds)

We're calling them Popgrams. Cuz you know, they need a catchy name.

We're going to hang the book on a plate rack in our hall, so that we can see it everyday and get it down easily when we need a little Pop moment. We're planning to fill that wall with lots of other little books about lots of other family members and memories.

The idea is to give our boys tangible ways to connect with loved ones, real touch-and-feel hooks on which to hang their memories. In that way, I hope that they will really understand the love, sacrifices, dreams and hard work that resulted in their being here, now. I hope that it will help them to know that they belong to something bigger than just this moment.

I think it's working, because tonight at dinner, my James prayed, "Thanks, God, for Pop being a good Dad to Grandmother, so she could be a good Mom for our Daddy, so he would know how to take care of us." And while we were eating, after his words had time to resonate, he said, "Mama kindness kind of spreads down in families, huh?"

There are so many days and moments when I think maybe I've gotten things all wrong, and then there are these merciful golden gems that make me think maybe we're doing something a little bit right. If he takes away only that one thing, that the love he shows today will flow down through generations, that is enough for me.

So tell me, what are the simple, everyday ways that you help your kids connect with their heritage?