Tag Archives: legacy things

Red Bud

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This year marks the beginning of the next decade for this about to bloom red bud tree. I bought this as a shrub when I first moved to Stowe Lane ten, yes ten, years ago and it has thrived.

Shrubs don’t normally reach for the skies and become trees unless the stars align, they are properly pruned and fertilized with all the best nutrients. There is love involved and crossed fingers and sighs of relief when one realizes that the blizzards and winds, and blights have left you, I mean it, unscathed.

Of course there is no way to know what lies ahead in the upcoming decade, no way to know where one is in the ever faster unrolling of the toilet paper metaphor. And really does one need to know or just trust?

So as we move into our next decade I will rely on this beautiful red bud to continue to stop me in my tracks alerting me to spring each year and showing me the way. The way to reach for the skies, prune what is dead or no longer needed, and adjusting and adding more and better nutrients as time goes on.

All the while leaving our beautiful story behind on Stowe Lane.

Father’s Navy Hammock

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reading in the hammock

Imagine, if you will, growing up in an old-fashioned sort of family, in an old-fashioned sort of family`s back yard, with trees and grass and flower beds and a hammock strung between two maple trees in a far, shady corner. Imagine you and your friends, when no one else is around, swinging each other as high and as hard as you can, stopping only when one of you swings all the way around and ends up lying in a heap on the grass. – July 28, 1985|By Elizabeth Maupin, Orlando Sentinel

It wasn’t exactly like that but damn close.  My friends weren’t really interested in my Father’s old Navy hammock but I was.  In the dog days of summer it was heaven on earth lying in the shade of the two maples with a book.  Summers back then didn’t seem nearly as hot.  Our backyard had a lot of shade, a constant breeze and the old maple was always in motion, rustling, reaching for the sky.  I could stay there for hours; my Mother always knew where I was and never bothered me.  If I fell asleep in it, so be it.

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I’ve been hearing lots of irritable remarks about the summer doldrums lately.  I admit I’m not a summer person but this summer seems more manageable to me somehow.  We’ve had a lot of rain and my garden isn’t complaining a bit.  We’ve had cool mornings that are conducive to coffee on the deck, especially with the overhead fan whirring, which has been practically unheard of in summers past.

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I’ve become nostalgic for that hammock several times in my life.  My first apartment (a hundred years ago) was a third floor walkup with no air conditioning. The coolest part of the place was my tiny guest bedroom, or as I called it my sewing room. I often fantasized about hanging the old hammock in that room, coming home from work, taking a cool shower and crawling into it with a book. If I fell asleep in it, so be it.

Another time was in my first house.  We had a hammock but it was woven rope and it never seemed as comfortable to me as the old canvas one I knew as a kid.  It was a shame to have lost that poor thing to old age and rot.  If I recall correctly it was my Grandfather who was the one who wound up falling through it.

hooks overgrown

By the time our family no longer had any ties to the old house the maples had grown over the hooks that held up the hammock and only the memories of it remained.  There are days when the heat is high and the breeze is just enough that I would love to crawl back into that hammock and lose myself in a book.  That’s no longer an option but the memory of it serves as a reminder that summer is for using less energy, catching up on the slow things and enjoying obligatory lazing.

The For Nothings

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“The second best thing after a gift itself is the way of giving it” ― Ali Boussi

In the middle of the mom’s-been-rushed-to-the-hospital-with-a-UTI saga I thought that rescheduling our, now annual, Christmas in July celebration might be appropriate. But we could make it look a bit different she said.  Ok?  Let’s just be together.  And so it was that I found myself with my best friend and her daughter at Kinchley’s on Friday night.  Not the elaborate sleep over we had planned but a fun dinner at a place that defies gloom on every level.  We ordered and while waiting they both began to fidget a bit in their seats.

We got something for you.

You did?  I was genuinely surprised and they were both pretty happy with themselves about that fact.

Do you want to go first, no you go first.  Should we give her this first or that first?

There’s a this AND a that?

From out of the bag emboldened with the words “shopping is my cardio” came the first something.  Prefaced by the disclaimer: “you know we are big believers in “for nothings” so we found this at a tag sale in Lake George and we thought of you.  All I heard was “we thought of you” and then the book came out of the bag.  What else would you give a person so enamored with legacy but a book titled Pioneer Women, Voices from the Kansas Frontier.  The introduction by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr alone made my heart skip a beat.  I know I’m a history legacy crazy woman. But how perfect, even after the man holding the tag sale said all the good books were inside, these were just the cast offs.

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Now which one? They looked at each other. Oh this one is really cool Aunt San.  It was a book, no it is a book but they carved your initial out of it.  It’s repurposed.  And damn cool if you ask me I said.

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This one’s from me.  In the box were two spoons one small and one larger.  I know where these are from, they looked at each other as if I were crazy or knew their every move, no not where you got them but where they’re from.

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They are from Malaysia.  I have a set very similar to them.  Turns out on one of their pop-ins at a local antique shop (because after all one must get in their cardio) my dear niece exclaimed, look Mom, spoons for Aunt San. The spoons are wonderful but even more wonderful; I’m in there. There are references that only equate to me in that beautiful little girl’s mind and I had all to do not to…well you know.  In my heart I hope that I was gracious in accepting these wonderful thoughtful gifts and not seem so selfish in my discovery that my legacy is growing with this future woman.

Dinner was fun; the movie we watched was fun.  We three had fun.  It was indeed a “cost nothing” kind of night that will forever be precious to me.  I may not be the Aunt that comes to the birthday parties but I am the Christmas Eve Aunt, the cool in some weird kind of way Aunt, the Aunt that stands in for Grandmas that can’t make performances and the Aunt that collects spoons, pottery and chairs.

“Gracious acceptance is an art – an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving…. Accepting another person’s gift is allowing him to express his feelings for you.” ― Alexander McCall Smith

P.S. I stand corrected on the proper “nothing”.  I was mistaken in thinking it was a “cost nothing” when it was a “for nothing” an even better nothing than the first.  It remained a cost nothing kind of an evening however.  Hopefully I’ve made it right this time.  

The Not Really a Strativarius

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It takes a certain kind of child to draw the bow instead of blow into an instrument, that’s not really my story but my violin has a story.

It was purchased by my grandmother for my Uncle Jerry during the Depression. Take that in for a minute, during the Depression. She paid 5 cents a month, or when she could, so that he could feed his love for music. Do you know how much 5 cents was during the Depression? How the hell did she do that? Well according to my mother she always had her crocheting in one pocket and her rosary in the other.   She made paper flowers with Mrs. Legore and Mrs. Marco (no Terri not Mrs. Spadafranc). And they sold their goods to…we have no idea. Milliners and nunneries and florists and retailers.

My Uncle Jerry grew tired of the violin, more a blow into an instrument kind of guy, so my Mother began to play. She was pretty good she thought ehhmm… She and my first cousin Nancy, who was around the same age as my Mother (it was a big Italian family, don’t ask) played together. In the attic. Because just how bad could Mary Had a Little Lamb be??? After the two hundredth time, you get the picture.

The violin lay dormant in someone’s attic, next to someone’s cedar chest until I entered fourth grade. I took up the violin, or rather it took up me. Yes I was the next generation to drive everyone to distraction with “Mary Had a Little Lamb” but I tried other things too. I do have one memory of being in the orchestra, sixth seat maybe, and during a pizzicato section actually hitting all the right notes. Really, it was a miracle because I was more about how cool I looked carrying it to school then becoming the next virtuoso.

My mother had it appraised at some point, I think when they were downsizing, and it came in at about 400.00. She thought it might be a….something…not exactly a Stradivarius but…something because her old music teacher really wanted it.

I’m not sure if my sister had any interest, I don’t remember her dragging it out. And so it went up in my attic, next to my cedar chest until I moved to Stowe Lane. Did I mention that magical things happen on Stowe Lane? I might have. My dear friend Mary Jo Anzel gifted me with some of her wonderful charcoal pieces. There was a huge study of a man with a cello which just begged to be hung over my fireplace accompanied, of course, by my tiny little almost hundred year old violin.

I don’t know what it’s worth, I don’t care to put a monetary value on it. I know that my Mother loved telling the story just recently, I know that if the house were on fire it wouldn’t be the first thing I grab but it has a rich story and a place in my home. It has a wonderful legacy.