Keeping In Mind

What are we but our stories? Right now mine is all about family and missing them all over again now that I'm home and too much food and the stomach bug making its rounds and old friends, one coming to visit, the other making his permanent departure on Thanksgiving Day. I didn't get to say goodbye and though I knew his death was imminent, it still took me by surprise.

So, when I say hello from now on, there will be a hug goodbye in it for the people I love. I will try to remember to slip "I love you" into conversations more often, either by word or glance or a light touch on the arm while we talk. I will do my best to keep a smile on the other side of every frown, a keen eye out for fleeting moments, and an ear open for everyone's stories, for once the teller is gone, the story ends and becomes mere memory.

Hooked

Two more American Sentences...

Not confined to heaven/earth/man, American sentences ramble.

And putting a fine point on perspective... 

Each of us sees our own small world from the center of the universe.

American Sentence

Author Alan Ginsberg created his own version of 17-character Japanese haiku in his book, Cosmopolitan Greetings, calling the results "American Sentences."  One sentence, 17 syllables, end of story. It's easy to get hooked. Here's one of my own, written on a night when sleep would not come.

Dream

Lost in sleep, the body withdraws and slips into that ancient dreamtime.

Posted for One Shot Wednesday
photo credit: www.arcanefractals.com

Repeat

I've posted this before so it may be on its way to becoming my annual Thanksgiving piece (until new grandbaby Ada is old enough to bake). Fia was three when this was written. She's now ten. Time has a way of slipping past us when we're not looking, doesn't it?

Beware What the Cook Won't Eat

It’s the day before Thanksgiving and I’m making a pie. “Can I help?” asks my granddaughter Fia. At three, she’s interested in being part of any cooking going on.

“Sure,” I say and we push up our sleeves, haul out flour and sugar and spices, find the rolling pin and two pie plates (one for each of us) and get to work.

She clambers onto a kitchen stool and leans her elbows on the table. “One, two, shtree,” she counts as we measure half-cups of flour and shortening into a bowl. I cut in the shortening, add the water, and mix the dough into a lump. I pull off a small piece and hand it to her. She presses it between her small hands. “We’re making pies, right Memere?” she beams. “I love pies.”

She nibbles a bit of the dough and makes a face, then watches as I sprinkle flour on the table. “Uh oh,” she says. “Memere, you’re supposed to put it in the bowl.”

I explain that I need it on the table so that when I roll out the crust it won’t stick. “Oh,” she says and helps me by spreading the flour all the way to the edges of the table and onto the floor.

I let her use the rolling pin first. Her small ball of dough rolls right around the pin. She picks it off, balls it up, and starts again. While she is busy, I measure pumpkin, milk, and spices into another bowl.

“Let me do it,” she begs when I take up an egg to crack. She whacks the egg on the edge of the bowl and drops the whole thing in. “Ick,” she says. I pick out the shells. When I hold the second egg out to her she shakes her head.

She scrapes her pie crust off the table and plops it in her dish, then kneels on the stool and puts her whole weight on her hands as she presses it flat. “How’s this?” She holds the plate up for inspection. The dough falls on the floor. She scrambles down, picks it up and blows on it. Flour dust puffs into the air. “It’s okay,” she assures me. “It was on the floor for not even one minute.”

I roll my own crust and fit it in the plate, crimping the edges carefully. Fia watches, then tries to crimp her own crust. When she is through, there is just room in the center for a dab of pumpkin mixture. I pour the remaining pumpkin filling into my pie shell and slide the pies into the oven. Fia helps me set the timer.

The kitchen looks like the aftermath of a fight in a flour mill. There is white dust on every surface, bits of sticky dough on the table, the floor, and Fia's chin, and spatters of pumpkin on the table and the stove. We fetch the broom and the dustpan. I sweep while Fia wipes off the table. I sweep again. When the last dish is dried and put away and the floor is clean enough to eat from, we turn on the oven light and check the pies.

“They look delicious,” I say to Fia. “We can eat yours tonight and save mine for Thanksgiving dinner, okay?”

Fia looks at her pie. She looks at me. “You can have mine, Memere,” she says. “I just only like making pies. I don’t like to eat any.”

Fia at 3 and her Memere (at a dance recital - hence the hair bow)