mornings past

There’s something about the morning that brings me back to thousands of mornings gone by.  Nostalgia at its best.  

Back to the winter mornings when I was ten years old and the blizzard the night before cancelled school in New Jersey.  As I sleep in my warm bed my mom shares the news she heard on the radio. The darkness is still spread out before me and the hallway ends in the light that sneaks out of the kitchen and living room.  But I am cozy in my downstairs room... I could sleep, but, NO, I have to check out the snow!  Bliss.

Back to running down the hill so I won’t miss the school bus.  Seeing the grandmother clock's hands pointing at 8:10.  Gotta go!

Back to the sleepy mornings with a newborn.  Stumbling out of bed to meet the needs of a little life that needs me.  In every way.  Tired.  And yet the vulnerable, helpless, greedy gulps make the sleepy journey to the crib fade into pure joy as a need met was so easily fulfilled.  Love.

Back to two little girls at the kitchen table.  The warmth of the oven pushing out the sweet aroma of french toast sticks, the stove sizzling with bacon ... smiling, happy, giggly faces.... a favorite doll or blanket or stuffed toy in hand.  Sesame Street flickering in the background.  Warm hugs and snuggles abound.

Back to a spunky young dachshund making his way from the kitchen to the bedroom racing full speed and landing on my bed... burrowing under the blankets for fifteen more minutes of comfort.

Back to Easter mornings with baskets of treats, and Christmases with piles of presents.  Back to countless days of coffee brewing and the sun rising and spreading across the lawn and streaming through the windows.

Back to morning talks about everything and anything.  Sitting up in bed with coffee discussing the news of the day, the news of yesterday.  Children.  Love.  Silly dreams or deadly serious realities.  

Back to mornings meeting my sweetie come from Austin to share times that involved no one and nothing but us for a while.  How wonderful that it WAS.  Building something more precious than we knew or understood at the time.  Lasting.

I felt it once again.  Even in the midst of grief and the hard realities of life I felt it.  The joy of a new day dawning.  The peace in its beginning.

“Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?” 

- Ann Voskamp

   

where I’m from

  

I am from rich black soil, homemade raspberry jam, baseball after school, apple fritters, spaghetti o’s and Beagles.

I am from the warmth of wood burning fireplaces, smoky, crisp air in the fall, dirt roads and a house on a hill. I am from walks in the woods along well worn paths.

I am from Grandma’s lilies of the valley and screened-in porch, Easter hyacinths and Mayflowers for mommy in the springtime. From bacon and egg sandwiches on Sunday, crumb buns and poppy seed cake.

I am from fragrant cedars and piles of presents in December and sleepovers on floor mats after pumpkin pie in November. I am from hardworking and strong. From loud laughers who all talk at once, generous and devout. From the Wittmans and Okkers, McCormicks and Kerteszes.

I am from the lovers of home, clotheslines and fresh ironed sheets. I am from strong women. Margarets and Martha. Good men. Richard, George and Cornelius.

From “you can be anything you want to be” and learning times tables at the kitchen table. I am from summers knowing I belong with hot tea and bologna sandwiches on Garret Drive.

I am from church on Sunday mornings and reading the funnies. From looking at pictures in the big Bible on Dad’s bedside table. I am from finally seeking and finding.

I'm a country girl from Jersey, Hungary, Scotland and Holland.

From the starry-eyed and committed high school sweethearts who went to a dance and raised a family faithfully with wild and pleasant sandy beach vacations without a dime left over.

I am from pictures and albums in the attic at the top of the stairs, diaries and journals. Treasures of enormous worth.

Write your own story using the Where I'm From concepts.

childhood reading....

Some of my best memories are of my girls when they were growing up.  I loved being their mom. Thankfully one thing I will never have to say is that I didn’t spend enough time with them. 

Talking to my daughter Jenni the other evening reminded me of how wonderful those growing up years were for me.  I know there were struggles and no family is perfect but I am so thankful for the time we had to be together.  I hope they always know they were my priority and were loved. 

Some of the best moments for me were the countless bedtime stores.  Boy did we READ!  We would snuggle up together EVERY night and read before saying our goodnight and I love yous.   When they were very little there were picture books with few words.  I love books with beautiful illustrations but of course the words were just as important. As they got older the books still had wonderful pictures … but more words.  The stories became longer and more complex.  Later we moved to chapter books like Little House on the Prairie, Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little and Strawberry Girl.

When thinking of my all time favorite children’s books, these will always be on the top of my list.  I think every child should have them read to them and should know they are deeply loved.

This story begins while a son has just been born. The story continues through the life of the boy until he is a grown man. The mother continues to rock her son to sleep singing "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be." Later, the role is reversed and he holds his elderly mother and says "I'll love you forever I'll like you for always as long as I'm living my Mommy you'll be." At the very end of the story, the mother passes away and her son is the father of a little girl, rocking her to sleep singing the same song that his mother used to sing to him.

It doesn’t get any better than that.  The story will definitely bring out a tear or two.

Corduroy was read and reread also. As the bear sits and waits for someone to buy him off the store shelf, there is also a little girl who is searching for a special toy to be more than just an ordinary toy; she wants a toy that will also be her friend.

 

The Little House is a book about the worries of a country house who watches many changes occurring around him.  I like its happy ending.

The Runaway Bunny is another favorite as are other books by Margaret Wise Brown.  I find it almost comical the way some people try to analyze and interpret some of these simple stories making them into something they were never intended to be.

Some say this book is a treatise on a mother's smothering love or how awful it is that this bunny really hates his mother.  I choose to believe the story, written in the 1940s, is nothing more or less than an earnest expression of every parent's limitless love for his or her child.

Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away.
So he said to his mother, “I am running away.”
“If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you.
For you are my little bunny.”
“If you run after me,” said the little bunny,
“I will become a fish in a trout stream
and I will swim away from you.”
“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother,
“I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

And so it goes….

So many books…. Make Way for Ducklings, Apple Tree Christmas, Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Giving Tree, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Polar Express, Madeline,  The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Blueberries for Sal, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon, The Pokey Little Puppy…  these are only a small fraction of the hundreds, if not thousands of books we read…. 

Time very well spent.

wild thoughts and memories

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Buttercups make me think back to my childhood.  Every young child in northwest New Jersey knows that you could tell if someone liked butter by holding a buttercup under their chin. If you put the flower of the buttercup up to your chin and it reflected yellow onto your skin it was a fact!  I think you were also supposed to become rich!  We’d find buttercups and put them under one another’s chins and say “yup, you like butter!”  I wonder who the first one to tell me that was.  A friend?  My mom?  My grandmother?  I  hope I get the opportunity to be the first one to tell my grandkids!

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Buttercups are one of my favorite flowers because they are so bright and cheerful… they grow wild.  I love flowers that don’t need to be replanted year after year… but are beautiful AND hardy and strong.  Resilient.  They bloom where they are planted.  They fade in later seasons but come back in the spring time.
There is something beautiful about perennial plants because they endure or persist from the same root part year to year.  They come back to bloom again even when you think they are gone forever.  Annuals have to be replanted because they die when the harsher weather arrives… although they do produce seeds that have potential to grow again.
I want to plant more perennial plants.  They make me feel hopeful!
My husband is in the habit of calling me buttercup too, so that’s another reason I like them.   If I call him on the phone I might hear… “What’s up Buttercup?”   If he needs a ride… “Come pick me up Buttercup!”  If I ask him if he wants a refill on coffee or wine… “Fill me up Buttercup!”

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Another favorite flower of my youth is the Lilly of the Valley.  It brings back many nice childhood memories.  My grandmother had them planted all around her house in Little Falls, New Jersey.  They were so fragrant and spread like little weeds.  One year she dug some up from her own yard and we replanted them an hour's drive away to our home in the country.  They also spread and would come up every year after that.   I like to think they are still there giving joy to the new owners.  They look like little bells and smell delicious!  I would pick bouquets of them and put them all around the house! Mmmm…..

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