Tag Archives: memories

growth

17 Thursday Mar 2011

Posted by in seasons, Writing

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Growth

I write of my garden as it grows through the years

The experience of life, the joys and the tears

I write to keep track of the planning and sowing

I write, unabashed, of my passion for growing

I write for myself, and so loved ones can see

The earth, the breeze, my garden and me.

N. Platto

I found this stanza of a longer poem, source long forgotten, circa 1997.  I didn’t know the name N. Platto then, and a quick search now does not provide any further illumination. Actually the SearchEngine was quite adamant that what I really meant to type was Plato, but I insisted it wasn’t.   I am no expert in Ancient Greek philosophers, but N. Platto is clearly not to be confused with Plato, who does not sound like a big fan of flowery poetry in general, and probably did not compose anything with this cadence.  Growth is a simple poem, and I am embarrassed how much I like it since I am pretty sure cool poems are not supposed to rhyme.

I rediscovered this poem today when I found an old garden journal I started while we still lived in Minneapolis, during the chapter when my life was slowly turning full circle from career to creator.  I still have this journal of the Minneapolis gardens, of course, because I find it difficult to part with nostalgia, and it was such a shiny, new, happy time in my life.  I wanted to remember.

As an “enthusiastic” Rememberer, I have been labeled a pack rat, too sentimental, and at worst, a borderline hoarder.  Let me be clear – I do not have stacks of newspapers from the 1980’s towering around me, no mountains of old yellowed margarine tubs filled with flotsom, no crates of oranges rotting on the porch.  I do not have a room full of dead cats that I can’t bear to part with.  I do however feel the need to hold onto some/quite a few boxes of memorabilia, just until I don’t need them anymore.  Admittedly, this process takes me a smidge longer than your average crazy-ish person.

Yes, things are just things and they are not what life is about and if I lost it all my nostalgia in one fell swoop it would be what was meant to be and I would live.  I could be anywhere with nothing and as long as my guys were with me it would be enough.  Stuff is just stuff and material possessions do not bring happiness and I know all that already.  Society values someone with truly excellent disposal skills that are measured by uncluttered rooms and closets and basements and garages.  And guest rooms.  I get it.  I value the peace that comes with simplicity, and strive for that state of zen.

I like to keep old things.  I always have.  And those certain objects that I was pressured into parting with before I was ready?  I still mourn those items.  They haunt me.  I don’t know how else to explain it, other than I was not yet done absorbing and understanding what those objects were trying to tell me. About who I am and who I was and where I came from.

I kept the Minnesota garden journal, pages full of photos of the same garden beds taken in spring, summer, fall and winter over a five-year period.  I liked watching the progression of growth, and the pages helped me remember where certain plants did well and where they failed.  We moved from that garden 11 years ago, and, as is now painfully obvious to anyone paying attention, I still have the journal. I rationalized holding on to it so I could look back and cross-reference certain flora complete with their Latin names, as this information would be surely be useful in the future and therefore it was OK that I kept it.  I don’t have to feel guilty about wanting to keep something if it is potentially useful.  For reference purposes.  Of course, I haven’t really looked at this volume for 10 ½ years, but, see?  I knew I wasn’t done with it yet.

I now know I was meant to find this journal, this spring, so I could revisit a feeling that has laid dormant for a long time.  I still have this journal because I was meant to find that poem again, and now I have.  Now I can write about the time and the place and the feeling of warm dirt on my hands when the long Minnesota winter finally ended and the plants nearly sprained themselves they were so ready to reach the sunlight.  I can write about it now, and I can remember.  Now, finally, it is time for that item to go, to be recycled.

*

Spring

Cool moist earth, ready to turn,

Peonies pushing, unfurling ferns,

These welcome, familiar, early spring urgings

Find me tools in hand, adrenaline surging.

As the first robin lights on my pond and tree

The earth, the breeze, my garden and me.

N. Platto

When rolling down Memory Lane, watch the nametags and Tall Corn

28 Friday Aug 2009

Posted by in seasons

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OK, so the 26th high school class reunion was a wonderful experience.  That said, driving alone into my old hometown on a beautiful (albeit hot) summer evening, the waves of memories washed over me so hard I pulled the car over to catch my breath.  It was like when you walk down a beach barefoot through the waves, and on your way back you think you are almost to your towel, but then you look up and the waves have been slowly pulling you off balance and your towel is actually 1/4 mile the other direction?  Does that happen to other people or just to me?  Anyway, it was like that.  Eventually I pulled in to the gravel parking lot, already filled with cars, parking on the approximate location of 2nd base of my old softball field.  As I recall, I was the softball player that the coach would have put in right field as the most-likely-spot-I-couldn’t goof-anything-up, but I couldn’t throw that far so I was put at 2nd base and everyone just prayed.  Once again, the memories were making me just a little lightheaded.

As I crunched across the stones toward the pavilion with the steel drum band, my eyes scanned the crowd and saw… no familiar faces.  As in, which ones are the classmates and which ones are the spouses/significant others???  Add creeping feeling of social panic to whoozy walk down Memory Lane.  But — wheww! — people were wearing nametags and I had on my bifocals, so I was set.  Just need to make eye contact, quickly scan brain for any firing synapses, then glance nonchalantly at the nametag and continue conversation.  I can do this!  What’s so scary about class reunions!  No problem!

So I chatted with the first couple folks at the door to the dinner area, somewhat bewildered that people had changed so much in the last 26 years.  They were taller or shorter than I remembered… more hair… that should have been my first clue.  Men as a rule don’t grow more hair in their forties.  But I had already spotted hash brown casserole on the buffet line so I was not thinking clearly.

Then I saw faces I would know anywhere — The Muse and The Scholar, sitting at the same table, all smiles to greet me.   The Cowboy was unfortunately MIA, otherwise it would have been the Facebook Blog Post Trifecta.  After a helping of roast pig (delicious by the way and I am still disappointed that I missed seeing the whole spannferkel-esque carcass), I felt better and started to see other faces I recognized.  I settled in to many happy chats, catching up on the years and laughing and looking at photos of kids that were impossibly grown up.

It was about an hour later when I realized that something was amiss — the lightbulb went on when I was talking to Patty, who I knew for sure, and her nametag said Ron…  Hmmm, it seems people had been trading nametags and the first several people I talked to were in fact not who I thought they were.

Uh-oh.

So if you are reading this and I said something completely nonsensical when I first walked in, please forgive me and TELL ME WHOSE IDEA IT WAS TO SWITCH NAMETAGS AND TORTURE THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS?????  Especially those with minds like a steel sieve??

But then, Patty put Ron’s nametag on me and put my nametag on someone else, so I guess I became a co-conspirator.  All in good fun.  Except that to some people I may have sounded like I just had a stroke.  But within another hour after that, nearly all the faces started to look familiar again.  I knew people.  Their faces morphed back into focus and the names came back to me.  The Memory Game, high school edition.

It was the Facebook connections that convinced me to go back, and I’m glad they did.  Rather than words on a screen, these evanescent facebook friends took their physical form again, and it was so good to talk in person.  As midnight rolled near, a group of friends came over to wish me a happy birthday.  What a great surprise!  I take up valuable brain capacity with the birth-dates of childhood friends, but I thought others were more sensible.  At any rate, that was the perfect finish to the evening and I left with a big smile on my face, looking up at the church on the hill, lit against the dark night sky.

Then I navigated the country byways to my parents’ home, you know the kind, the roads lined with Tall Corn.  Now, everyone knows the dangers of Tall Corn, which camouflages Catapulting Deer that launch onto the roadway with no warning, also activating the strong magnetic pull of The Ditch.  So I drove carefully, all those old memories now safely hidden in the darkness.

a trip through their eyes

02 Thursday Jul 2009

Posted by in Motherhood, seasons

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We are having a fantastic vacation.  As with any extended trip, some things have gone awry but many things have gone amazingly well, with much good fortune and some timely lucky breaks.  It is our longest family trip ever, filled with lots of priceless memories and lots and lots of time together.  All together.  Together in one hotel room and one intermediate size car. 

Did I mention lots of togetherness?

Vacations have a way of inviting expectations; they sneak into the suitcase as we pack, unawares.  It is true, on this trip in particular, where Don and I are taking the boys back for the first time to where we used to live, and finally enjoying the opportunity to take them to all of our old favorite places.  We have looked forward to this trip for years, with dreams of how it will be with our sons at our side, gamely hiking countless miles of beautiful trails and scenic vistas.  (Does anyone see a red flag?)  Yes, of course, it was inevitable that these very destinations, golden California memories for us, are viewed by two young boys in a very different light.

So, I have been given the privilege of viewing the family vacation through a boy’s eyes…  and here is how it looks:

Every mountaintop vista or Yosemite cliff or San Francisco hilltop scenic view is evaluated based on projected flight speed, lift and anticipated trajectory of a paper airplane (which we would not let them throw, much to their consternation).  Every rushing mountain stream or coastal tidepool wave is benchmarked by how far and fast the S.S. Styrofoam would travel… but, alas, we did not let them pack their homemade “ship” on this trip either.  So basically, Don and I are just big spoil-sports who take them to cool places but then won’t let them test the laws of physics.  Damn the need to not litter and to preserve our national parks!

And the cars — oh, the cars!  As we drive Highway 1 along the coast, or up and down forested mountain roads and past national landmarks, they keep a running commentary on every car we pass, what liter engine and how much torque it has, and was it an XT or an EX?  Many hours of entertainment (and heated debate) on the specifics of a car that is now a quarter mile behind us, yet still oh so very fascinating.

About 25 times, Don popped a vein in his temple and “told” them to stop talking about cars and look at the scenery.  But being a boy at heart himself, about 10 seconds later he would see a really cool car and he could not help himself, he would comment on the year, make and model and start up the whole automotive conversation all over again.  I started a “Car Jar”, which is like a “Swear Jar” wherein whoever commits the infraction of discussing another auto would have to put in a quarter.  The proceeds could then potentially be used to buy me some Xanax.  The Car Jar lasted about 45 minutes, because the boys did not have any money and Don ended up with the most infractions and all of everyone’s quarters had to be used for SF parking meters anyway.  Sigh.  I just lapsed into a coma for a short time to calm down.  Could everyone please just look at the trees and the flowers?

On a more positive note, we have walked many, many miles of incredible scenery, and eventually this exhausted the small ones so thoroughly that they could no longer focus their vision on cars.  Plus, since we stayed on the valley floor of Yosemite, we parked our car and almost everyone else parked their car which meant the boys could only debate the fuel source of the shuttle buses and tour buses (hybrid or biodiesel?)

We have also played countless games of Pooh-Sticks, which has nothing to do with any body function, but lots to do with Winnie the Pooh floating sticks down a stream and watching where they go.  Good clean fun, and there must be some physics in there somewhere.  We hiked and rode bikes and played on beaches and by waterfalls and streams.

It is all good, these experiences together that I believe we will always remember.  I’ll remember everything I ate, because I always do; my memory is based more on taste and smell than vision.  Don is often amazed that I can recall in detail a meal from 10 years ago, yet accidentally rent the same film three times.  Hey, I can’t help it that I can’t taste Appollo 13.

Mostly I hope I will also always remember how my boys viewed the world at this age.  How we all can look at the same view and see something completely different, and how their view is no less right than mine.  Just different.  Just boy.