Sweet

My most very vivid childhood memories involve being at my grandmother's house. Every Sunday we had soup at her table and whichever of her sons and their families were available would attend. Every season brought with it a special food that she would make. Whether it was her special fried chicken, or her pierogies, she made enough to feed everbody and then some. I loved it when she made cookies, especially at the holidays: nut rolls, flaky "nothing cookies" and her famous thumbprints. When I got old enough to help, she allowed me to mix up the food coloring for the icing. Until then she had always gone with the standard blue, red or yellow. Once I got a hold of the colors, there was no limit to the color combinations. I also remember her baking pies after we had gone out to pick the raspberries, or cakes for birthdays. But my favorite were her gobs (better known as whoopie pies.) These were made on a whim, for no real occasion except that she felt we needed a little sweet treat to eat. And now that I have a brand new cookbook devoted to variations of this dessert, I'm on my way to following her example. Methinks this is the sweetest idea of all - though others would argue that licking the beater is truly the sweetest part.
~b


Tal is afraid of bees. Which is the only reason I have no bee hives. I'm pretty sure deep inside this housewifish exterior stirs a born bee keeper, a bee whisperer, a person who really likes honey. But Tallis got stung on the back of the neck three summers ago and he is still sure all bees are out to get him. Whenever I (delicately) bring up the topic of bee hives in our yard he turns pale and shakes his head vigorously, as if trying to shake off the bees he knows are milling around his ears waiting for a lowered guard. So I'll wait for my bee hives. A month ago Tal took his first swimming lesson - another fear - and spent most of the half hour clinging to the side of the pool looking up at me with tears and frowns. Now he hops into the water like a skinny merboy. Someday he will brush bees, blackflies and mosquitoes from his hair with studied casualness. Children are required to brave about so many things - I'll let him nurture this fear for a little while longer. And until I get my own stack of bee condos, I'll gratefully accept gifts of honey from friends, honey made all the sweeter by sentiment.
~a

Chair

Last Thursday I took a vacation - in my rocking chair on the front porch. I read a book. I rocked. I took my sweater off for the first time in five months. And though the yard was serene and the breeze clement, I jerked with guilt every few minutes. The baby was asleep and I had no deadlines that were too pressing; dinner was burbling in the crockpot, the washing machine chugged in the basement and three whole hours lay between now and picking up the boys at school and ferrying them to piano lessons and baseball games. None of which padded the sharp certainty that there was something, somewhere, I should've been doing. The book: So Much For That by Lionel Shriver. The sun: aglow. The chair: during a playdate at my friend Meg's house I admired the upside down chair in their backyard. She said, "Want it?" and before I could refuse she'd thrust it into the back of my minivan. And it has lived on our porch in gentle service ever since. It's a kind chair that never feels on the verge of tipping over like some rocking chairs I know. It doesn't mind a bit of damp; its skin is already blistered and peeled, there's not a whole lot worse we can subject it to. Eventually it will fall apart. Eventually it will no longer be safe for a half hour vacation. But for now I rock, I read, I sip whatever drink the time of day calls for and I try to ignore those shivers of near panic that somehow, by sitting, I'm falling behind.
~a


When M and I lived in our first apartment, most of our furniture was inherited from relatives and generous friends. Two pieces came from a shopping trip to IKEA. One was an iron stand we kept in the kitchen, named Omar. The other was a black metal-framed chair called Gunther. When a friend was over one evening, she was appalled to learn that the green chair I had inherited (from a previous boyfriend's sister) had no name. She sat in the round, green, expansive seat and pronounced her Estelle. Since then I have kept with the tradition. In our years together M and I have since brought home Oskar, Irving and Eudora. Sadly there isn't much room for them in our little house; they've been relegated to the enclosed, covered porch under a sheet. I like to think of them as if they are convalescing, chattering amongst themselves. Awaiting the next teatime and the move to a bigger house,where they will once again be spread amongst the rooms providing comfort to anyone who needs it.
~b

Command

The baby is a few weeks shy of two, and it shows. "Have a cookie!" he yells, and you might mistake it for a hostessy offer, but no, he is commanding his mother to give him a cookie. "Have walk on road!" "Eat cereal!" "Wuca, no, my tea!" "Watcha movie!" "Have a banket!" "No diaper, go away!" He is no shrinking violet; Barno is loud of voice and firm of opinions. The earliest talker of my three boys, his requests and demands (really, there's no difference) are loud and emphatic and usually, thankfully, clear, because if we take longer than a moment to understand his desires he is likely to underscore his words with flailing limbs and voluminous tears. My last child. My final stumble through the world of two. My baby who is no longer a baby. Love you, baby. "Have a nap!"
~a


With Mother's Day last Sunday and my birthday tomorrow, this is the week to hear the sweetest phrase: your wish is my command. If only this were true. World Peace, less dependency on electronic media and technology, children everywhere clothed and fed. Or maybe something simpler: a cup of tea, a good book, sunshine, and a place to curl up and enjoy them all. But homework, housework, and Library work beckon. The word Command has such militaristic connotations. A command is harshly delivered in an imperative tone. I've only heard them barked at me when I marched in the band in high school, and when I attended dog training classes. But a wish, aaaah, they hold desire and passion; secret thoughts floating on the wind like dandelion fluff. What wish burns inside you - be it as intense as fireworks or birthday candle bright?
~b

Smooth

Years ago when M and I lived in Pittsburgh, our friends sent me a pottery wheel for Christmas. It was a secret desire of mine and I had not breathed a word to anyone about it. To this day, thinking about it reinforces my belief that there is indeed a Santa Claus. I made many tiny pots with this wheel, using an air dry clay rather than a kiln to harden them. When working with clay, I happened upon a technique that would allow me to put ridges on the outside edge of each piece. Once I discovered it, everything clicked. Nothing had to be perfectly smooth in order to be finished, or, in our eyes, beautiful. We are not a smooth family - our peanut butter is always crunchy and the placid surface of a pond always begs for stone skipping ripples. We like a little texture, don't mashed potatoes taste better with a few lumps? But sometimes what I want and what I need are vastly different. When I am feeling particularly prickly, bumpy and nubby only seems to rub me the wrong way. In a severe state of stress I find that stroking stones smoothed by the sea often soothes me.
~b


We eat a lot of peanut butter in this house. Well, the boys - all four of them - eat a lot of peanut butter. I rarely eat peanut butter found outside the blessed confines of cookie form. Our peanut butter comes from...peanuts. At the Co-op we flick the switch, watch the peanuts funnel through the grinder, watch the butter squeeze out into our waiting plastic container. The boys tend to argue over who will flick the grinder's switch; occasionally they come to shoves and it all ends in tears. M tends to pay close attention and make the peanut butter even and neat all the way around the container. I tend to run off to grind coffee, pour olive oil and bag some rice and come back to a messy peanut butter catastrophe. Our peanut butter is not chunky, though flecks of nut can be discerned by the wise pallet. It's smooth, but not exactly smooth - it has definite texture, personality, wishes and dreams. Every batch is slightly different with its own quirks and inconsistencies - just like us.
~a

Butterfly

When our dog Bronte died a few years ago I was inconsolable. It was a sunny day in July and after we came home from the veterinarian's office, there was a butterfly floating around in the front yard that landed on my knee. I comforted myself by thinking it was a sign from Bronte that she was alright wherever she was. Now, any time I see one, I am apt to break out in a secret smile. On a recent trip to the Butterfly Conservatory in Deerfield, Mass., we visited a room filled with butterflies of all shapes, sizes and colors. To see the joy on a child's face when a butterfly chose to land on them was an even better sight to behold than the gliders themselves. Last week I purchased a copy of "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard at the Five Colleges Book Sale. Upon opening it I was treated with a gift from a former reader - proving that butterflies and surprises show up when you least expect them, but often when you need them most.
~b


A week ago Saturday we all went shopping at the grocery store. This is unusual. Grocery shopping is one of those chores that slipped to a weekday schedule as we gained more and more children who have to be entertained in the cart. But last Saturday we all went after spending a few hours at the book sale because you can't eat books and afterwards, as we were falling exhaustedly into our seatbelts, I asked Luca, "What's in your hand?" He opened his fist in pure surprise. "Hey, a butterfly," he answered. Hatched from his palm as if from a cocoon. He had no idea where it came from, which isn't unusual for Luca, so we decided to trust this particular destiny and bring the butterfly home. Obviously, it needed a family. Now the butterfly hangs from a nail on our porch and sometimes I call it Paddington, when I remember to call it anything at all.
~a

Fruit

Today we did yard work under a daunting blue sky. M cleaned out the chicken coops and ushered wee baby chicks into the world; I declared war - again - against the mint in the front yard. And I dragged the withered corpse of our lemon tree out of its corner in our living room to its final resting place behind the garden. I didn't mean to kill the lemon tree last winter; we'd kept it alive for eleven years, through moving and getting married and having babies, but somehow, this year, saving it from deep frost was beyond us. In December, only a dry skeleton remained standing upright in the green pot on the porch. I remember M looking at me oddly when I brought the obviously dead tree inside, but the guilt, the guilt. It only ever bore two lemons for us; the real treasure was found in its leaves. When you folded one in half and brought it to your nose, you could smell a bright July day, clean yellow sheets dried on the line, ice-cold brewed tea and the sweet tartness of worldly well-being. I used to carry a leaf or two in my pocket during drab winter as a reminder of barefoot days to come - I will miss that.
~a


Why is it that recipes seem to call for rhubarb and strawberries, or any other kind of fruit you may happen to have on hand? The sweet may balance out the tart, but sometimes it's nice to let one particular flavor shine. Does it always need to be peanut butter and jelly or salt and pepper? Maybe mix it up, try introducing your peanut butter to a banana and then maybe to some honey for an interesting threesome. Your pepper might enjoy meeting ginger, at least they seem to get along in Dorrie Greenspan's cookies. And as for the rhubarb, go for straight up. Boil it down for syrup that you can add to selzer or soda. Fruit, we don't need no stinkin' fruit - around here we like it tart!
~b

Short

Ten days ago I turned 35. I am probably at least halfway through my entire life. I have so much to do. Like travel the world. Read many, many books. Write many, many books. Bring fresh drinking water to a country or two. Run a marathon. Get a grown-up job. Hang a hammock on our front porch. Worm the horses. Climb a tree in a rainforest. Gaze at an iceberg before they all disappear. Life is short and I have tall plans. I have pages and pages to turn before seventy. Really, though, at the end of my life, as long as I have loved well and laughed easily whenever the opportunity presented itself, I will feel like a success, I will probably be content to make a graceful exit.
~a


Not much is short around here, we have tall husbands and tall sons. Limbs and legs stretching on towards forever, growing seemingly overnight like that once-rumored-to-have-been beanstalk. There are, however, occasional flare-ups of short tempers, attention spans and sightedness - but they are blessedly short-lived. Here in Vermont weather can often be the source of aggravation. It snowed several times last week, proving that Spring, like creative inspiration, can be elusive. It must be savored and enjoyed at every possible moment, for neither is long lasting. This time of year always reminds me of our dear friends Frog and Toad. When looking to locate spring, it always seems to be just around the corner.
~b