Tag Archives: #ordinarylegacy

A Callahan’s Mom

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Today it was all about the hot dog. And beer…birch beer. And a piece of the past that we shared so many years ago as a young family growing up in Bergen County. For Mother’s Day we dined at Callahan’s Hot Dogs. Not brunch, no cooking, no fuss just a hot dog, well not JUST a hot dog it was Callahan’s after all. The snap, the flavor, the birch beer, the music it just all came together like a time capsule broken wide open. It was simple, it was heartwarming, it didn’t include my father but enough trains passed by that we were pretty sure he was on one of them. It’s what she wanted to do for her day.

Sometimes you get there. Sometimes a father’s daughter can learn to appreciate her mother because a little dog comes along and makes her into a Gramma. The mistakes aren’t forgotten but they are relabeled into something more palatable, something more relatable.

The reliance has become endearing especially when you find yourself saying you did the right thing, out loud. Me: no it wasn’t the IRS calling. Me: yes do call the police to report it. Me: see even they said you did the right thing. Now it counts…

Most of all you admit you don’t know what you’ll be like when you’re approaching 86 years old. You admit you’re glad that you own the dog she loves as if it were a grandchild. You admit there may be more similarities than differences, our feet don’t touch the ground. It’s a start albeit a small one, no pun intended.

There is gratitude in the passing of time that allowed all things to come to the point where regrets are over taken by small moments. Like receiving the proud sticker that said Callahan’s Mom from the original owner’s grandson who called her Gramma, day complete.

Happy Mother’s Day from a father’s daughter…

Sitting on a Park Bench

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There is something about a park bench, not the eying little girls with bad intent kind of something, but something wistful.  Seems no matter where I am if my camera is with me there inevitably will be a picture of a park bench among the images. Because, yes, I am that crazy “chair loving” woman and a bench is simply a larger version of a chair. But that aside it’s the more public experience that draws me closer, I can better explain that attraction.

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I had the pleasure of enjoying a lovely lunch with friends on a park bench yesterday at the NY Botanical Gardens. Lunches brought from home that become warmed by their confinement in a day pack just taste better. The sun was shining yet it was still nice and cool, the people watching wasn’t too distracting and all the better because the view was breathtaking. As Lincoln once said, every blade of grass is a study.

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I was reminded of the custom of carving one’s initials in a park bench to cement the moment in time. This image from a bench tucked away along the side of a lake.

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I was further reminded of a place I once ran to for some much needed solace that was neither too far nor too close to my home. It was a tiny sanctuary in the middle of my town, around a bend. But even in its smallness the pond and the wildlife it attracted calmed my otherwise chaotic life for a few hours.

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Sharing a bench with someone has led to many a discussion of things both worldly and mundane, of good books and the beauty that often surrounds a well-placed park bench.

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Several years ago it became a custom to dedicate park benches to local parks in someone’s honor. In their name many wonderful and heartfelt inscriptions have been etched on benches. And while those are wonderful I tend to look for the more…truthful…humorous…stop you in your tracks dedications that make you laugh out loud and entice you to sit where this person sat.

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If you need a break in your fast paced, stressful, hair pulling day, find a park bench, grab a hot dog and start the day again. It’s worked for me.

 

Ghost Gardens

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In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. ~Margaret Atwood

I couldn’t take it another minute, I had to get dirty. I had to make my way to the nursery, not the big box store where they wouldn’t know a frost date if you paid them, to look around… I had to venture into the greenhouse passed the sign that said STOP it’s too early to plant these to see what I could see, to smell the fertilizer and take in the rows of color.

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I have to be in my garden, my tiny little piece of land with shitty soil and no sunlight, in order to fully recover from the winter.  There is only so much I can do now, no tilling or turning or mulching in or pulling volunteers or dividing or sowing seed is necessary anymore. And it’s the anymore part that sometimes gets to me.  Sits me down on the step to wonder what ever happened to my lovely Oaktree Garden?

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This was the second time this year I became nostalgic about my once upon a garden. The first time was during an episode of Parts Unknown: Detroit with Anthony Bourdain.  In all the ruin that has become Detroit there are “ghost gardens” in and around the abandoned mansions that once were manicured to perfection.  And I wondered what ever happened to my lovely Oaktree Garden.

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Himself mentioned once that it still comes back each year.  Perhaps Sydney Eddison, Horticulture magazine, was right when he said, “Gardens are a form of autobiography.” Perhaps I, too, have left a ghost garden. That thought gives me some solace even though I believe it may have come back with a lesser vigor.  It is no longer tended with the blood sweat and tears that came from the life and frame of mind that conceived it.

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On that same street, right next door is another beautiful garden that I truly hope endured.  My friend and fellow gardener, Harumi, could make anything grow.  She was generous with her knowledge and her cuttings.  I remember to this day the dew on her lady’s mantle and the lilacs and wild iris.  And Benno’s vinca!!!

It occurred to me that ghost gardens are all around us, there is a tiny tulip that comes up on the other side of my porch each year, planted by someone that received it for Mother’s Day.  Same with the two or three hyacinth that come up along another porch in our complex, of course I had to ask…

I wonder if Jeanette’s garden comes up on Woodside Avenue in some form or another with its rhubarb and pumpkins and gladiolas.  I wonder if anything finds its way to the surface from my Grandmother’s garden on Taylor Street.  The fruit trees are gone, but I’m sure the hosta and lily of the valley have remained.  I hope…

I was comforted to look around my tiny little garden space to see the hosta peeking through, the redbud is about to bloom and the wild ginger has sprung back to life.  There is hosta in the front, too,  along with the sedum poking through and the wild geranium and columbine and sweet woodruff.  I’m a bit worried about the hydrangea but worry comes with gardening…

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When I move on from Stowe Lane I believe I will leave behind yet another ghost garden, somehow solace comes in knowing; we come from the earth, we return to the earth….And in between we garden.
 

 

For Your Eyes Only

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for your eyes only012Everybody’s got a thing. You know, that thing that is so tightly wrapped and tucked away in the corner of your self-protecting part of the brain. It peeks out once in a while only to be tut-tutted back where it belongs far from the earshot of the logical thinking part of the brain.

As part of Brave Blogging, I had the privilege of listening to an interview conducted by Andrea Scher with her writing teacher/mentor/friend Laurie Wagner. Aside from the easy talking with my friend while she’s waiting for her flight style it was full of writing tips, gems and an assignment: The blog post no one will ever read. Wild write it, just go, pen to paper, no holds barred. No right or wrong, no is it good enough, just truth, this is how it is.

I listened to the interview several days ago and I knew it started to grow in me when I began waking up at 4 o’clock in the morning head spinning with pen in hand and notes strewn all over the bed. It became the perfect storm when the interview combined with a very matter of fact statement I heard from someone recently, they said, “I knew everything had changed”. I knew what I had to write, I knew I would fill a legal pad with several decades of heart wrenching examples of exactly how that one thing changed everything.

It’s easy to be brave at 4, 5, 6 in the morning, it is exhausting, and it is exhilarating to find and go to your edges. However, what you begin to realize is that at your edge lies the edge of someone else. If we are all connected then this must be so. It was all true, every word, and the truth indeed sets you free but I couldn’t find it in my heart to impact another with my truth even if they’d never know it. I wouldn’t take that chance.

Part of the interview addressed, “when it’s not your story to tell”. This isn’t someone else’s story, its’ mine but I’ve gained enough from just writing it, the need to publish it seems overkill or someone else’s spirit kill, or negating the good work of simply taking it out of its protective covering, showing it the light albeit 4am lamp light, and NOT putting it back.

My favorite sentiment from this interview, “…the way you walk through the world is the way you walk through the page…” Thank you Laurie I will carry this with me always, it smacks of building an ordinary legacy.

I encourage everyone to try this, writer or not, for your eyes only. Find a spot, a pad, a journal, construction paper it doesn’t matter. Your favorite pen, crayons, marker just NOT your computer. Let those new connections that are created in the brain run wild from you taking pen to paper. Just go, get out of your way, unpack that thing or one of those things that you’ve so securely tucked away and have at it. You may find your aches and pains subside, your anxiety abates (I spent 4 hours in a meeting at the National office, which I swore I would never do again, without a bit of anxiety), if nothing else you will feel lighter.

I ritualized this for myself by rolling it up and throwing it in the fire the following evening. Watching it spark up the flue doesn’t mean it didn’t happen it simply means I unpacked and let it go. Doesn’t mean I won’t remember it from time to time either, I’m sure I will. There is a saying, you don’t see things as they are, you see things as YOU are (Anais Nin). Surely this will make all the difference.

Suffice to say no one will ever see that post but the sentiments, lessons learned, truth of it and feelings about it may very well become fodder for the blog. My edges will be grist for the mill, my experience a resource and my integrity in letting it go part of my ordinary legacy. I am better for having done this…

 

Telling Your Stories

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If you think you’re not telling your story simply because it hasn’t been written you’re wrong. Every day that you’re here you’re telling your story, perhaps not in words but in a myriad of other ways. Writing is the obvious but do you paint, build, garden, or collect?

I may have mentioned before that art is legacy. It is the artist’s story that helps to build a portion of their legacy.  I’ve been following a friend I met in Houston at the Lime Retreat hosted by Karen Walrond of Chookooloonks.com, on Instagram for the last several months (only the last several months because I just discovered Instagram). Her name is A’Driane Nieves @addye_b. Her story unfolds in each of her paintings and it is REAL. Whatever she thinks she is, she is talented, provocative, engaging and worth mentioning again…real. I often say that the best stories come from those of us who crawl, walk, soar and she personifies this. I know like I know that she is telling her story in glorious color and building a legacy that will live on.

Ask any gardener what their story is and they will walk you through it, literally.  They will tell you why they planted every variety, they will tell you who gave them a cutting of this or a seed of that.  They will tell you when the light moves and how many times it took to find just the right spot for the damn fill-in-the-blank. This is the story they live and hope to leave behind.

A collection can tell any number of stories about a person.  Think about what draws them to collect the things they do.  I have a friend who collects vintage audio equipment, reel to reel and stereos. Why? Because he and his family are lovers of music and what better way to enjoy that music than on the equipment for which it was intended.  Visit with them and the playlist becomes an important part of the experience as does their enthusiasm.

My spoon collection was started by our dear family friend Jeanette.  By now you know I speak the gospel of Jeanette as often as I can but, in this collection, perhaps my name will be bantered about. My spoons come from all over the world, the country, representing different locations, themes and associations. I know who gave each one but I especially love when it comes with the sentiment of I thought you’d love this…I do!  There are hundreds of them and each started as a way to connect with people I know, where they were traveling, where they lived, what they were enjoying. With each gift came the story of their adventure or their reason for choosing just that perfect one.  It became my way of connecting with and reliving the stories of those I enjoy most.  They are all displayed prominently in my home and admired, their stories have become a part of my story.

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The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can…Neil Gaiman Whatever form or forms it takes, your incredibly delicious pea soup, the level in Jiu Jitsu you’ve attained and are fostering in your children, the people you’ve learned you’ve touched recently at your retirement party, your acting, your music, your sense of style and sarcasm, anything that represents you the way you want to be represented should be celebrated as the story that is you.