>Welcoming Twilight

I am three hundred and four pages into “Twilight”.

I know what you’re thinking. Well, I know what some of you are thinking. Some of you are thinking “Ewwww”. If we were in the same room, sharing air, I’d see that look in your eyes; the one that says “I think you’re ridiculous, but I’m trying, really hard, not to say it”.

Some of you are thinking, “I took my kids to the movie, and that was enough.”

At least one of you has read it. But, you didn’t just read it, did you? I believe “devour” would be a more appropriate verb, don’t you? And, after you finished, you watched the movie, never before, always after, always in that order, book, movie, book, movie, book, movie, book. You’re waiting now. Hollywood has you in a holding pattern. There’s just one more movie, and while you can’t wait to see it, to see how everything turns out for Bella and the boys, you’re mourning, too. Because, you know it’s over. You’ll never feel that way again…

I have just described my fifty-nine-year-old colleague. By the time she read the first book, all three had taken up space on the New York Times Bestseller List. But she adhered to the pattern. She read a book. She watched the movie. She read a book. She watched the movie. As the saga unwound, so did she. I believe she refers to herself as “Team Edward”. I’m proud to say I have no idea what that means.

A seven-year-old attempted to enlighten me.

On the way out of town, I stopped at Burger King. I know! But it was my grandson’s turn to pick, and he really likes chicken fries. As far as I know, Burger King is the sole purveyor of chicken fries. And this is as it should be…

I shepherded him across the parking lot only to be accosted by a life-sized poster of Robert Pattinson at his blood-sucking best.

“I’m team Jacob!”, my seven-year-old grandson shouted at the poster through a scowl.

“You’ve read the book?”, I asked, knowing that he hadn’t.

“No…”

“Then how do you know you’re Team Jacob?”, I played along.

“’Cause Jacob is a werewolf and werewolves are tougher than vampires.”, he growled to illustrate.

I’ve done my time with romance novels, or as my friend refers to them, “bodice rippers”. And I can tell you, nothing gets the female adolescent blood boiling like a Kathleen Woodiwiss novel. To this day, I can conjure the picture I painted, inside my head, of one of her heroines. Shanna was an Irish redhead.

A couple of years later, I worked with a woman who was a (gasp) “single mother”. My shift began as hers ended, which is how I came to meet her mother and her daughter, Shanna. Only this Shanna was blonde, platinum blonde, with terrifically long eyelashes which her mother trimmed to “make them grow longer”. But I digress…

Ms. Woodiwiss, it seems, set the standard. Since that time, countless romance novels have revolved around Irish redheads, and while I can’t be sure, I think it’s reasonable to presume that Fabio may have been inspired by the artist whose work graced the covers of her paperbacks.

Over time, though, the stories grew stale. The characters ran together. I anticipated dialogue. Nothing spoils a rugged embrace like expectation….

But “Twilight” is a phenomenon. I felt I should read at least one book just to see what all the fuss is about.

So, I came to “Twilight” jaded, jaded and late. By now, all four books have been released and two of the movies are available on pay-per-view. My colleague just saw the third a second time at the Fox Theatre. She went with a group of friends. The youngest was twenty-eight.

I began reading with no intention of viewing. Leary of disappointment, I often avoid movies based on books I’ve read. This time is different.

Stephanie Meyer writes things you want to see, like skin that sparkles with frigidity.

And, I’m not invested. I know what Edward looks like, and I like it. If forced to pick a team, I’d pick his based on physical attributes alone. But, Stephanie writes him fragile. She also writes him strong. Beautiful, fragile, and strong? Sign me up!

It occurred to me last night, as I inserted the business card I use as a bookmark between a page I’d read and one I hadn’t, that I’ve read this before. This is King Kong. This is Beauty and the Beast. This is Rocky. Beautiful, shy girl meets isolated, misunderstood man/beast and falls in love. In all its incarnations, the story captures female hearts of all ages. And, despite knowing how this turns out, I’ll probably read the next one.

The more things change…

>Party Pooper

Until recently, I’d never thought of people in terms of political affiliation. Of course, ten years ago, “recently” meant last week. Now, “recently” refers to any occurrence still present in my short-term memory bank. That happened about the same time I came to think of the wraith-thin, long-haired, twenty-five-year-old in my office as a kid.

I changed jobs ten years ago. I spent the first day on my new job alone in the boardroom, in a leather chair, pushed up to a massive, gleaming, cherry table. Heat from my hands left a steamy outline on its surface, a way to pass time between tests. There were aptitude tests, and intelligence tests. My favorite was the personality test. Every question read like a trick question. By the time I had filled in one circle on every line of the answer sheet, I felt sure I would be declared certifiably insane.

Apparently, at least one of my answers gave away more than my IQ. From day one, I’ve been labeled “The Token Democrat”

I don’t like labels. I don’t like labels even more than I don’t like being told what to do. And, I really don’t like being told what to do. My tendency in both cases is to prove the opposite of the assumption, giving little or no thought to my own best interests. In other words, even if I had thought of myself as a Democrat, I certainly wouldn’t own up to it. But, the truth is, I didn’t.

The truth is, I rarely give a thought to politics at any time other than a few weeks before an election, at which time I dutifully research the candidates, read the amendments, and stand in line with the other five percent of the population who give a damn. Actually, five percent might be ambitious. Some voters appear just a little too pleased to see “Fred” or “Ethyl” behind the folding table passing out pencils they might have pilfered from Yahtzee. And, apparently, it’s not possible to hand out forms and pencils while reciting what amounts to two years worth of Christmas letters.

I work with CPAs, real estate investors, and mortgage brokers, self-proclaimed Republicans all…until recently. A couple of weeks ago a real “maaaverick” of a woman attended a Sarah Palin rally and henceforth refers to herself as a Libertarian. Her penchant for shoes rivals mine. She’s sure to have at least one pair that will compliment a tri-cornered hat.

On Wednesday, a memo circulated about the office, detailing changes prompted by our ever-weakening economy. This led to a discussion that, as it seems most do, turned political.

“It’s the same way Clinton was elected.” The speaker’s expensively sheathed legs stretched as he leaned against the corner of my cubicle. “The economy went south under Reagan, and Clinton was elected. The economy went south under Bush, and Obama was elected. No matter who the Democratic candidate had been, he’d have been elected.”

“Those darned Republicans…”, I murmured, aiming a coy smile in his direction.

“Hey, Stacye!”, the Sarah Palin supporter called over the unfortunately-colored, burlap-covered wall separating our PCs. “Why’d Barack change his name?”

I hesitated, looking to the leaner for enlightenment. He answered with a half smile and raised eyebrows. We both waited.

“Before he was elected he was Barry. Now all the sudden he’s Barack!” She’d obviously taken notes.

“It’s a nickname.” I failed in keeping derision from my voice. I don’t set out to defend Democratic positions. It’s just that I abhor inanity.

“Well you know…”, the leaner’s voice got louder as he straightened. Throwing both arms wide, he finished. “It’s like a lot of people who come to this country from somewhere else. They adopt an American name!”

A local radio station plays the sound of crickets when someone says something stupid. I heard them then. There was no other sound until I spoke…softly.

“You know he’s American, right? Barack Obama was born in America. You know that… right?”

Relief washed over me as fast as color filled his face.

“Yeah…”, he shuffled his Italian leather loafers. “Yeah, of course, I knew that…” He turned towards his office.

“It was a Freudian slip!”, he called over his shoulder, composure already regained.

The latest issue of New Yorker magazine contains an article by Jane Mayer in which she depicts Koch Industries, and specifically David and Charles Koch, as the Mad Hatter. Its tea time and Alice is drinking the Kool-Aid.

The Koch brothers might be described as fundamentalist Libertarians, a doctrine borne out of their father’s fervent anti-communist stance. Koch Senior made a fortune in Russian oil until Stalin kicked him out. Following in their father’s footsteps, David and Charles preached “No Government” while Koch Industry oil refineries raked in millions in subsidies mandated under George W. Bush.

I listen as my newly minted Libertarian office-mate encourages her friend to apply for a “handicap sticker”.

The disillusionment I feel in Barack Obama can not be overstated. I miss the prosperity we enjoyed under Bill Clinton. But, I know he wasn’t entirely responsible. I am one of the few Georgians I know, including my Republican friends, who continue to support our Republican governor. John Linder was my congressman. We emailed, back and forth, often. His idea for a Fair Tax was appealing if somewhat unrealistic, as presented.

I’m not a Democrat. I’m not a Republican. I’ve a sudden aversion to tea.

I’m a woman. I’m a Mom. And. as any mother knows, not necessarily in that order.

Ask any Mom.

We just want what’s best for our babies.

>Hot As A Firecracker

I collect aphorisms. A really clever one will stick the first time I hear it. Others take more time but are used just as often. My sofa is “heavy as a dead minister”. My son’s friend is ‘not the sharpest knife in the drawer”, and “time flies, whether you’re having fun or not”. I really love “…tight as Dick’s hatband”, but rarely have occasion to use it.

My Dad has a favorite I’ve only recently embraced.

“Old age isn’t for sissies.”

I just have gotten used to being fifty, which I suppose is a good thing since I’ll be fifty-one next week. Better late than never.

As an admitted late-bloomer, I find the gravitational pull of advancing years especially cruel. I only just arrived, and already I’m melting into my shoes…

If I could return, for a full refund, all the moisturizers, and eye creams, and facial serums, and Porecelana I have purchased since the age of thirty-five, I could easily afford the plastic surgery required to erase what time has wrought.

“Porcelana?”, you ask. If you’re my age, you remember the commercials featuring a frightening, liver-spotted hand. You remember thinking you would NEVER buy that stuff. If you’re younger, you have no idea what I’m talking about, and that’s just as well. I bought one jar, and for the record ladies, it doesn’t work. A Q-tip soaked in lemon juice is just as effective and probably much less carcinogenic.

It’s the baggy eyes, and the laugh lines, and the crow’s feet, and the lackluster teeth, and the nebulous chin. It’s in knowing that laying on your back takes years off your face, until anxiety sets in as you wonder where your breasts are. It’s that pair of Calvin Klein skinny jeans, the one in the back of your closet, the one with the permanent dust-line where your knee used to be. It’s all of it…

A couple of days ago, I was summoned by HR. This is never good. The man behind the desk is a scant four years younger than me.

“Did you change something with your insurance?” His chair turned side to side, and he with it.

Struck by the absurdity of his question, I hesitated before reminding him that he was the company insurance administrator.

Unembarrassed, he chuckled.

“I know!”, his voice, and his arms, became expansive. “That’s what I said! But my wife wondered if maybe you were having an important birthday.” The last two words squeezed out of the right side of his mouth while the left crept upward.

“No…”, I began. “You know my birth date. If anything, “big” would have been last year.”, the absurdity continued.

“Yeah, well…” He stopped spinning, and waving, and grinning, and gripped his desk instead. “But you are getting older…” The last word played like scales on a piano.

I’m thinking that’s what did it. That, and a comment made by a fellow blogger. Using wise words, she advised against comparing ourselves to young girls. She suggested, instead, that we embrace reality and try to be the best we can be…now.

The other day as I approached my car in the breezy way I do when feeling particularly light, I caught my reflection in the driver’s side window.

“Well! Look at you!” The words played, as though spoken, inside my head.

I slid into the driver’s seat with a smile.

I’ve “traveled the world and the seven seas”.

I’ve “been ridden hard and put up wet, more than once.”

Some days I feel “old as Methuselah”, but more often I’m “hot as a firecracker”!

Bring it on!

>Garaged

They were garage smokers. We could gauge when they woke and what time of night they went to bed by the rise and fall of the garage door.

Joe spent lots of time sitting in a kitchen chair just inside the door. It was an older chair, probably maple, judging by the color of the wood and the half-moon style so popular thirty years ago. Next to the chair sat a tall, gray file cabinet of the same era. I always wondered what was in that cabinet. I wondered if it was happenstance, or the result of a purpose-filled decision that the cabinet was in easy reach of the chair in which Joe spent so much of his time.

I never saw him open the cabinet, but he did other things in that chair. He smoked, of course. Sometimes I saw him raise a beer with his left arm. He’d sacrificed his right to Vietnam. It was there, but half the size of the “good” one. Contracted muscles had rendered his hand useless. Sometimes it twitched when he talked

He talked in that chair, mostly to my son, and mostly about cars; specifically, the 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass. They both drove one. Josh built his from the ground up, painted it silver, and referred to it as “Girl”. Joe’s was navy blue. Both were pristine.

Sometimes, he had his hair cut in that chair. He sat with a white towel draped over his bony shoulders and smoked with his good arm while Brenda, his wife, sheared him using electric hair clippers. She finished before he did. There wasn’t much to cut.

While spring air still carried winter’s bite, Joe sat several small, plastic greenhouses just outside the garage in the morning sun. He took them inside at night, repeating this ritual for weeks until the ground had warmed enough to plant. His gardens always flourished. Mine paled in comparison.

Their mowers woke me on Saturdays. Joe rode. Brenda pushed. Sometimes they wore pith helmets.

On Sundays, sometime after lunch, they emerged from the open garage carrying sudsy buckets. Hoses were unwound. Thus began a laborious process that entailed spraying water followed by endless circles made by soapy white towels. They used real chamois to dry their cars before opening all four doors to admit the vacuum. Slamming car doors punctuated our dinner conversation before they emptied their buckets on the lawn.

Brenda filled buckets with bleach water. Steam enveloped her hand as she carried a bucket across the lawn towards a park bench that sat between a large pot of silk sunflowers and a birdhouse on a tall, white pole. Once a month she dusted the garden hose with a feather duster, while Joe struggled, one-handed, to control the telescoping pole he used to dust the rafters. She mopped, first the front porch, and then the garage.

Their ritual went unbroken. No visitors interrupted their dusting. They never came home from a long vacation to find their lawn had gone to seed. They didn’t sully their freshly scrubbed front door with a Christmas wreath or mar the freshly mopped porch with a pumpkin. Nothing interfered with their quest for extreme cleanliness, not even Joe’s illness.

Sometimes, as he sat in his chair, a clear, plastic bag of urine peaked out beneath the hem of his khaki shorts.

The procession of cars in a driveway blown clear of autumn debris could mean only one thing. The emergence from the garage of a portly woman wearing a black picture hat over an unflattering black dress left no doubt. An older man joined her. They stood just to the left of the open garage, in front of a carefully maintained flower bed, and waited. Brenda emerged, also in black, and the three left in one car.

Two days later, Joe’s bedroom sat in a pile in front of the open garage. A large, red Salvation Army truck backed up the driveway, and as fast as the two young men loaded items onto the truck, Brenda brought more. Joe’s chair was the last piece loaded.

The Cutlass disappeared, as did Brenda’s Buick. Her shiny new Civic took up very little room inside the empty garage through which an assortment of craftsmen beat a path to Brenda’s door. Custom cabinet makers were followed by electricians who gave way to plumbers who were supplanted by painters who were replaced by roofers.

I watched as she purged him. Immediately, methodically, purposefully, Brenda removed every trace of Joe from her life.

And, the garage door rarely opens.

>Leftovers

I met Vera when she joined the staff of the midwifery clinic where I worked. Patient demographics had changed drastically over the preceding year, forcing a kicking and screaming administration to advertise for a translator. Vera was a fifty-something, bottle-born redhead with a personality to match. She was also Puerto Rican, which would seem to make her a perfect fit, unless you know something about the importance of dialect to the Spanish language. Most of our patients had immigrated from Mexico and Central America. Watching her with them reminded me of a comment my son made, after his first football practice, when he described a coach who had just moved to Atlanta from New York as, “…that French guy.”

Vera persevered, undaunted. She never lost patience with patients whose pronunciation differed from hers. But neither did she change. She taught, instead.

As I would soon learn, Vera was well schooled in adversity. One year before joining our staff she buried her husband of nearly thirty years. He had suffered from ALS for the preceding ten. During the two years we worked together, she constructed a story of undying love and amazing perseverance. She talked about the kind of man he was before the illness, the adventures he’d lived for, and their passion. He had been a successful businessman, making pots of money right up until the day his legs refused to support him. His time in a wheelchair was short, as the disease progressed quickly. Soon their world shrunk to fit inside their sumptuously decorated master bedroom. Vera slept by her man every night until his last night, and on his last day wrapped her body around his as he breathed his last breath.

Her description of his losses struck me. I pictured them as she spoke. One day he couldn’t write with his left hand. Six months later he couldn’t raise his arm to put on a t-shirt. The other arm quickly followed suit. He fell a lot before his legs stopped working. The wheelchair meant she couldn’t leave him for long. One side of his mouth went limp, so she had to remember to put the spoon in the other side or the food would fall out, making him angry.

I could easily picture myself the caretaker. I graduated from nursing school. I worked as a staff nurse for two years before quitting to care for my own babies. I volunteered at a hospice.

What I can not imagine is being the one with the misshapen mouth.

Years later, I discussed this with a friend who sympathized, saying she and her husband had had “the discussion”. She almost whispered the words, and I understood. Saying them aloud makes them real.

“I won’t have anyone taking care of me. When the time comes when I can’t take care of myself, that’s it, I want to go.”

“You mean…?”, I ventured.

“Yep.” The word felt incongruously nonchalant. “And, he’s going to help!” It was more an order than a suggestion. I found myself feeling sorry for her husband. Will he still be afraid of her? Even when she’s dying?

I watched my mother live four years as a cancer “survivor”. And, that’s what she was; she was surviving. You certainly couldn’t call it living, because it in no way resembled her life before cancer. Life after cancer was dependent on a steel oxygen tank and lots of plastic tubing. Oh, and yogurt. Radiation killed her natural flora, making digestion difficult. Yogurt helped to replenish it, allowing her to eat very small amounts of other foods. And, she developed a penchant for scarves…

She smiled a lot. To hear my father tell it, she and he enjoyed those years very much. But I have to wonder. I wish I’d asked.

“If you had it to do all over again, would you?”

I heard an interview today with Tony Judt. You may not recognize the name. He was a British-born historian who wrote what he called “boring old history books”. One of them was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He died last Friday from complications of ALS.

The interview was taped five months ago. His voice was digitally amplified and yet hard to hear over the wheezing oxygen pump next to his chair.

The interviewer focused her questions on death and dying, asking how things had changed for Mr. Judt, and how he felt about them. The topic turned to religion. Mr. Judt was a Jewish man who attended temple to please his wife.

He began by talking about life in a wheelchair, moving on to the time when his life shrunk to fit inside his bedroom. He painted a picture of life lived in an empty space that people used to visit. He felt sorry for himself until he realized it was his responsibility to be present, to be joyful, to create memories, because memories are after-life, and soon after-life was all the life he would have. In Mr. Judt’s opinion, we live on in the minds of our loved ones. How we live is up to us.

Boiled down, it’s selfish versus selfless. Selfish won’t allow for less than. Selfless accepts less than and builds upon it in order to leave something behind.

I never met Mr. Judt while he was alive. Now, six days after his death he’s left me with something to think about.

Perhaps he was right…

>Tomato Gorgonzola Soup

I was bit by the gardening bug early. Well, not bit exactly. No, it was more like someone wedged a pair of twenty pound post-hole diggers into my sweaty prepubescent hands while marking off the circumference of five circles where holes should be dug at least two feet down.

Yeah, it was exactly like that.

My dad marked the holes with the toe of his work boots which my mother referred to as “clodhoppers” when she threatened to make me wear them because I was “so rough on shoes”. They were suede on top with a heavy, rubber sole and always carried a thick crust of orange-colored, red clay on the toe. The clay didn’t come off, even as he drug the toe around and around, marking one hole after another, in a straight line, until he had five.

“Tomatoes have deep root systems. Don’t stop until you’ve dug at least two feet!”, he reminded me, while wiping sweat from his generous forehead with the handkerchief he always carried in his pants pocket.

Somewhere around the third hole, I started to picture my sisters and their perfect hair. And, they were smiling. But, of course they were. They were inside, in the air conditioning, where it was nice and cool. They were probably sitting in the den, watching television. It was time for American Bandstand. Posthole diggers slammed into the earth, harder and harder, until I couldn’t see how far down I had dug. I wondered if I’d left a trail of dirt like the clay on top of my father’s boots as I wiped tears from my eyes and saw I’d have to dig a little more.

Today, I am an avid gardener. Among other things, I grow tomatoes. I grow monster tomatoes that burst from their cages to tangle in a mass of hairy green branches that threatens to take over one whole side of my garden. And, I do it without the assistance of posthole diggers. Turns out tomatoes aren’t so finicky, after all.

Several times each summer I pick a tomato early, just as it begins to turn, while it’s still yellow nearest the stem. A guy at work saves boxes for me that are just big enough to hold one, carefully bubble-wrapped tomato. I apply a red and white “Fragile” sticker to the sides of the box not covered by the UPS label. Sometimes my father calls when he gets the package.

“I had a tomato sandwich for supper tonight, and I’ve got enough left over to have another one tomorrow!”

The excitement in his voice when he does call makes up for the times when he doesn’t.

I don’t eat raw tomatoes. And, I’ve tried. When we were kids, summer meant large slices on one side of our plates. Mimicking my mother I dusted mine, generously, with salt and pepper…and it became something disgusting covered with salt and pepper. My father relentlessly expressed his amazement that I didn’t like “his” tomatoes, especially when he’d grown them himself! I listened as my thumb worked the patch of hardened skin the posthole diggers left behind.

I do like cooked tomatoes. I can’t imagine french fries without ketchup, spaghetti without meat sauce, or life without brunswick stew. In fact, my favorite cooked tomatoes are in soup. Years of indoctrination leave me unable to eat a grilled cheese sandwich without a side of tomato soup.

Unless it’s Tomato Gorgonzola Soup. Tomato Gorgonzola Soup needs no accompaniment. Well, perhaps a salad of mixed greens topped with homemade blue-cheese vinaigrette. Mmmmmm….

Tomato Gorgonzola Soup

3 lbs. tomatoes, halved (Romas are good, heirlooms are better.)

3 tbl. olive oil

Salt & Pepper to taste

1 lg. onion chopped (Vidalias or Texas Sweet are best)

1 red bell pepper, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 tbl. good sherry

3 tbl. flour

½ c. gorgonzola cheese (Low-fat is okay)

½ c. cream cheese (You may use low-fat, but I think it loses something in the translation…)

½ c. half & half

5 c. organic chicken broth

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. black pepper

1 can sliced new potatoes

3 tbl. fresh basil, minced

3 tbl. butter (Have you ever read a margarine label?)

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Toss tomato halves with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Place on baking sheet, skin side down. Bake 1 hour.

Meanwhile, sauté onion, garlic, and bell pepper in butter until tender. Add flour and cook for two minutes. Add sherry and stir, being careful to scrape pan. Add cheeses and half & half and stir until cheese melts. Add all remaining ingredients except basil and simmer ½ hour. Stir in basil..

Transfer mixture to blender and blend until creamy.

Pour into bowls to serve.

>Making It

I made a yardstick cover once. It was my first, and last, experience working with smelly, scratchy burlap. I might have gone with a nice, polished cotton except I was eight at the time, and I worked with what the Brownie leader gave us. The flowers we glued to the front were nice. They were large, made of felt, and sherbet hued.

My mother hung my gift next to the door in her sewing room. It sheathed her favorite yardstick; the one made of soft, balsa wood with the telephone number of a local hardware store printed on both sides. It stayed there until the flowers’ petals began to curl, just like real petals do. I never left the room without pressing on them.

I made a vest in home economics class. And, then I made a jumper. Remember jumpers? I loved jumpers, especially a simple A-line jumper.

The class was taught by a large African-American woman who favored chartreuse double knits. She also taught cooking classes. I can’t recall what I cooked, but I do remember her announcement, “There’s no such thing as blue food!”, and my bemusement when I realized she was right. I’d never really thought about it before…

I made an amazing score on the SAT. This has no real significance other than knowing that my sister, the one who made straight A’s for twelve straight years, didn’t.

I made children; four of them, one daughter and three sons. Of course I had help, of both a divine and not so divine nature, but their complete reliance upon the inner workings of MY body suggests “making” to me. And when you make children, you make something more. You make history, and legacy, and hope.

Putting my home economics classes to good use, I made all of my daughter’s clothing until she started elementary school. I made shirts, and shorts, and ruffled panties. I made dresses, and long, cuddly nightgowns. My favorite, of course, was a jumper. I made it of brown corduroy, and embroidered a yellow Care Bear named “Funshine” on one side, close to the hem. Upstairs in my attic, I’ve stored one outfit each of my children wore as babies. I hope to see a granddaughter wear that jumper. Maybe Care Bears will be popular again. It could happen…

I made a lovely counted-cross stitch sampler which I then stuffed and fashioned into a pillow. The design suggested a friend, and I gave it to her. That was over ten years ago, and it still serves as the centerpiece atop her creamy, white chenille bedspread. Some of the stitches have loosened, and synthetic stuffing often peeks through one burst corner. You see, she doesn’t just look at it, she uses it.

I made a different birthday cake for each of my children. My daughter, a “Christmas Baby”, favors red velvet. One year, my friend made her cake. I can’t recall why she did it. Perhaps I was just busy with the other children. My husband might have been in the hospital. Or, rehab. Rehab is more likely. Once in the hospital for surgery, and he came out a new man. Several trips to rehab never had the same affect.

My friend, in her creative wisdom, added crushed candy-cane to the cream cheese frosting covering the cake. We’ve made it that way ever since.

Bruises, especially large, purple, soon-to-be yellow bruises, are hard to ignore. When they are on your face its damn near impossible. Before they healed, I made a home for my children out of a 12’x60’ metal box. In the south, most people refer to them as trailers. If they’re trying to be polite, they might say “mobile home”. But it really was just a metal box. Oh, it had a hitch on one end, but the last time it was mobile was at least thirty years ago.

I felt fortunate to have scored the lot across from the pool. At night, red lights on the Coca-cola machine winked at me, taking me back to my childhood, when all motel rooms were on one level, and a peek through rubber-backed curtains revealed the pool’s glistening surface reflecting off brightly-lit, multi-colored vending machines. Despite what some deem squalor, living there was a perpetual vacation, and it wasn’t just the lights…

I made a field of flowers out of what used to be a lawn before the septic tank was replaced. When it rained, red clay ran in rivulets down the street towards the baseball field behind the pool. I say “baseball field” because my sons played baseball on it. But, whether you call it a trailer park or a mobile home park, diamonds were hard to come by.

I never heard my mother curse until she had cancer.

“I’ve got some heavy shit to tell you.”

She died over five years ago, and I still hear those words at least once a week.

Upon hearing them the first time, I made the decision to return home to Atlanta. We shared a duplex with a young couple expecting their first child. I went back to school, and on a diet. My fitness class instructor partnered me with a more traditional college student. He was cute. He was required to touch me. Matronly just wouldn’t do.

Many nights, I made a bed of the couches in the ICU waiting room. Visits were limited to fifteen minutes out of every hour. I made one when I arrived, and one before leaving. My father couldn’t bear the thought of my mother being alone. I couldn’t bear the thought of my father worrying.

Today, I made pickles. It’s been a banner year for cucumbers. I can’t pickle fast enough. Fortunately, my friends are pickle eaters. My son thinks we should sell them.

We visit our local Farmer’s Market weekly. As we walk the aisle, tasting and touching, he taunts me.

“You should sell your pickles, Mom! I could help you!”

I don’t need to sell them. I don’t even need to taste them. I just need to make them.