My Very First Place, Old Tables, and Grandpa

It was a galley kitchen and my first "real" apartment.   My first apartment on my own without a roommate.  The challenge?  Not the rent.  Not the smell of permanent solution for hair that permeated the apartment on Saturday mornings when the women all came and got their perms, but the fact that the door to enter the apartment was blocked by the refrigerator.  This was most assuredly a fire hazard because it literally only opened up about 15 inches.  At this point in my life there is not way I could even enter my own place.  It certainly limited my visitors to those who had small breasts, and were slightly underweight.  You could get in if you shifted your body catty-corner to the fridge, pushed slightly on the back door, all the while inhaling the most you could.

There was no room in the kitchen.  The rest of the apartment was spacious, to say the least.  But the kitchen left much to be desired.  I asked my grandfather, who at the time, was in his 80s to make me some kind of a table for the kitchen.  I don't know why.  Why would I want to sit two people in a four foot alley of  a cooking space?  It made no sense, but since he lived 250 miles away and never saw the apartment, he was glad to be asked to take part in this first step in my "adult" life.

It was, like the kitchen, long and narrow.  The legs were wooden, and the table top was not a beautiful inlaid top, like all the other beautiful pieces he made.  It was durable.  It was sensible.  It was made from left over linoleum with tiny yellow and green spots that he had from the 50s.  Yes, the 1950s and he still had the same linoleum that he had on their own kitchen table, and the counter top in their kitchen.  The legs were stained a funky light mahogany because I believe he mixed two colors of what he had around -- never a waster was he!  So it was my first kitchen table.  In very efficient manner, he had bolted the legs to the table and labeled them "A", B", "C" so I could reassemble them later, when I inevitably and hopefully, in his mind, married and reused the table.  It was, in short, wonderful.  It was wonderful because he made it.  It was funky because it was silly with it's odd top and oddly colored wooden legs.  It was my Grandfather in his sensibility.  The sensibility that got him to this country and kept many a roof over their heads.

The table rarely got used at that apartment.  I brought it to every place I lived afterwards, never leaving it behind, never not storing it lovingly.  It was such an odd shape because it fit the odd shape of that particular kitchen, it never really got used.  I still have it tucked away in my shed, with all it's legs comfortably sitting close by, ready to be assembled at any moment.

When I uncover it, I can recall how many days I sat at that table in their kitchen with the same spotted yellow and green linoleum, having chicken soup and waffles before we watched the "stories".  I can recall when I sat on the funky little step stool chair that had a step stool that you could pull out underneath.  I would rest my hand on the counter top and watch my Grandmother put her Cool Whip on the jello she had lovingly, and expectantly, made with canned fruit cocktail.  Almost always red jello, but every once in a while, she'd throw you for a loop and make green.  I'd trace the spots along the metal edging of the counter top.

I can take out that table now, all these years later, touch it with one finger and taste the jello, hear the soap operas or the "stories" as they were called.  I can remember when my grandfather finished the table I had specifically requested and given him the measurements for -- his eyes were proud.  He was the epitome of reduce, reuse, recycle well before it was cool, or really even critically necessary.  I was thrilled because it fit perfectly.  It fit better than most people who came to see me did as they came to my home.  I kept flowers in a vase on it.  I used it prepare things I made for others and took with me because no one could actually fit in the kitchen but me.  I loved that table then, and I love that table now.  Grandpa has been gone over 14 years and every time I touch that table I'm reminded of all the love and pride that went into making it for me for my very first place.  

The Storm & the Sweetness of Life

Waking up in a full anxiety attack is disturbing, but going to bed at 9 pm was probably not the best of ideas.  So, I sit and watch HGTV in the middle of the night.  My joints ache and I know the rain is coming.  When I crack open the window there is nothing but stale, humid, hot air.  No rain, just the smell of it coming.  I can hear the storm in the distance, and the dog is beside herself in anticipation because she can't get to the back of the closet where she is certain the storm won't get her in any way, shape or form.

Knitting calms me, and slowly, and expectedly the storm builds overhead.  Knit, knit, knit, yarn over, purl, purl, yarn over. The repetitive stitches take away my anxiety.  Too bad the dog doesn't have thumbs or perhaps she too would find peace in this simple, yet calming task.

When I was a child I remember storms brought this wonderful sense of adventure, and peace to my mother.  I would be terrified that the lightening would somehow come into our home and strike us all to pieces, and she would be dragging her kitchen chair to the front door, opening the door, and propping open the door, if the screen wasn't in yet.  It didn't matter what season, when the storm came you could count on my mother being there, perched, enjoying the howling windows, the drips from the roof on the steps.  She'd urge us to sit right there on the stairs going up to our room so that we too could enjoy all of natures wonders.  At night, the crickets would sing, regardless of the rain, and she would watch out the door.  She stayed at that door until the very last bit of the storm, and then back to the kitchen she would go with her chair and resume whatever she had been doing.

Sometimes at night, when I had a bad dream or there might be a storm I'd go to the top of the stairs, gazing down to see if the faint glow of the light in the family room was on.  Then I would know she was awake too.  I'd slowly walk down, and find her, with the television muted, at her quilting stand, making minuscule stitches with the window behind her open so she could hear the rain hit the deck outside, and feel the stale air that brought her, and now I, so much peace.  Her concentration was intense when she worked on her quilts as she did every last stitch on the project completely by hand.  They were works of art.  My knitting is something to calm my nerves, occasionally with the advantage of being a gift for someone thrown in.  She always welcomed me, never questioned why I was awake unless I looked disturbed.  Sometimes we'd sit and chat, but mostly we'd sit and listen, feel the air, and just be.

Tonight my breaths are deeper, the air is cooler after the intensity of the storm, and only the casual falling of a drizzle continues.  I am calm, and I can feel her so closely, almost as if she sits in this room, this chair, with me.  If I sit perfectly still, holding a breath in, I can almost feel her reading over my shoulder.  As if to confirm this feeling, at the same moment of writing that sentence I hear a roar of thunder that goes on for thirty seconds.  "Yes, babe.  I'm here.  I'm here."

I know you are, Mommy.  Tonight, I know you are.

Knit, knit, yarn over, purl, purl, yarn over.  The peace continues and my breathing comes back deeper, calmer, as I know I'm not alone tonight.  Again, the thunder rolls in the background.  Life is so sweet.

Mother's Day and Clean Sheets

Yesterday, Mother's Day, I spent it doing exactly as I wanted.  Mostly alone.  One daughter was away with her boyfriend, arriving later on in the day.  Two daughters slept late -- after noon.  The youngest went on a boat with her dad.  I folded the laundry that had become my nemesis.  I am not convinced that when my time comes and I pass that they will not find me buried under the mountains of laundry.  If, for any reason, I should disappear -- look under the laundry.  Chances are high that you'll find me, or at the very least, a clue as to whose room I might be buried under.

I puttered around the house.  I ran to Wal-Mart and the grocery store without children.  You're getting the point, probably shaking your head, wondering how I finagled this.  I make it known that the only thing I wanted for Mother's Day was that we all make a large salad together for dinner, after six o'clock.

Then, I did my most favorite thing that I do for my children, though it may not be their favorite thing that I do.  I washed all their sheets and comforters and I made their beds.  Yes, the can and do periodically, though rarely, do this themselves, I love doing it for them.  It's almost like the last way I can tuck them in bed.  The older they get the more joy I get.  I can't tuck my 20 year old in bed.  Can't pull her into my lap before bed, though I occasionally try.  I can't "chew" on my 18 year olds chin to make her giggle, though I have been known to do this as well.  Goodness knows, I cannot get close enough to my 14 year old to do anything, though every once in a while I'll feel lanky arms around my body, and a chin on my chest.  Then the six year old, who will cuddle, but usually has guinea pig shavings in her bed.  She's willing to sleep among the lovely pieces of the loves of her life, but it makes it kind of itchy for us to lay down.

So, I wash and wash some more.  Sheets and comforters are the only thing that goes into the washing machine, dryer and then out again and put away immediately.  I stretch the bottom sheet over the mattress, smoothing it out as I go.  If they use a top sheet, I tuck in the bottom, fold down the top.  I wave the quilt out a few times over the bed, and lay it down on the bed just so.  I want it lay down invitingly.  The pillow cases go on the feather bed pillows, and all is propped up.  Stuffed animals are placed back on the bed and I stand back and admire my handiwork.

Then I hope, and I imagine that when they get in bed that night that they feel the coolness of the sheets on their feet, and the pillow envelopes their heads.  I imagine they pull their blankets up to their chin, and quite frankly, I imagine them sighing, feeling like their day was wonderful, and there is more tomorrow.  I hope they know that they are truly loved, merely by the clean, freshly made beds.  That I've managed to tuck them in, even as they grow up.