Tag Archives: family

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80 Years in Eight Days — Day Number Five: 10 Silly Sayings

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The birthday project continues.  Yesterday’s was a rather heavy topic.  I had to take a nap after writing it!  So today, I’m offering Silly Sayings to lighten things up a bit.  My mom was an English major in college and has always exhibited a droll, rather British wit.  She loves word play and puns and arcane literary allusions.  So here’s a list of some of her rather unique utterances.  We’ll start with terminology and end up with occasional quips.

1) Zans.  This is a kitchen gadget commonly known as a bottle opener, but thanks to Dr. Seuss, my mother refers to it as a Zans.  “Have you a Zans for cans?  You should!” (from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, of course)zans-for-cans

2) Doo-hickey.  This is a twist-tie for closing a plastic bag.  She saves them in a little dish on top of the oven to re-use. 

3) Cupeliar.  It’s like peculiar, only more so. 

4) Slip-go-down.  This is any food that you can eat without making an effort to swallow it.  It’s served when you are sick with a very sore throat.  An alternative for brand-name gelatin, if you will. 

5) Posbiculate.  Otherwise known as brain-storming, logistic cogitating, or ‘work-shopping’, if you speak Biznish (that one’s mine;  I came up with it when my IT husband would start using computer terms at home).  How it’s used: my brother is now engaged, but there is no wedding date set yet.  We’re still posbiculating. 

From this sampling of terms, we now move into occasions.

6) The one great hour of swearing.  This is when my mother feels an urgency to clean house.  She swoops down on us in a flurry of instructions, frustrations, and activity making everyone uncomfortable…but only for a short time, because it’s all accomplished quickly and efficiently.  Then she can say…

7) “It’s all a merciful blur.”  I get this response a lot when I ask her to recall the details of how she managed something painfully emotional and/or difficult.  She prefers to remain positive. 

8) “I haven’t had this much fun since we nailed the baby to the floor!”  Now, calm down.  Mom’s not got a sadistic bone in her body.  Picture this instead: a baby dressed like Swee’ Pea in a Popeye cartoon with a trailing nightie.  Nail the nightie to the floor, and the baby will crawl forever and not get into any mischief.  So, now you can!

9) “Enuff zis luff-makink.  Let’s eat!”  This is how Mom moves a gathering of chit-chatting guests into the dining room to actually sit down and begin the meal before it gets cold.  I kid you not, she said this as we were standing around in the courtyard of the columbarium at my father’s memorial service, too.  Dutifully, we all burst out laughing and headed in to the Parish Hall to start the reception.

Resting place

10) “Here’s champagne for our real friends, and real pain for our sham friends!”  This toast comes out periodically.  She said it over the phone to me on Christmas just a few days ago.  Now you’ve heard it just in time for New Year’s Eve, her birthday.  I leave it up to you to quote…or not. 

New Year's 2013

© 2014, essay and photographs, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved

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80 Years in Eight Days — Day Number Four: 10 Parenting Principles

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If you’re just visiting this blog for the first time, you’ve stepped into the fourth day of my birthday project for my mom, who is turning 80 years old on New Year’s Eve.  Today’s list of 10 things is about Parenting Principles.  My mother is, naturally, my primary example of mothering.  She and I both became parents for the first time at the age of 22.  She raised 5 children to adulthood; I raised 4.  Wisdom doesn’t come with numbers or statistics, though.  Wisdom comes in the actual practice of decision-making in love.   It’s not about adopting a “right way”, it’s about living out of your values and making choices that you deem appropriate.  Keeping that in mind, here are 10 ideas of mothering that Mom communicated to me over the years.

1) Your marriage comes first.  This piece of advice she always attributed to her mom.  The simple logic is this: your family starts out with just the two of you and will end up with just the two of you.  That twosome is the foundation for all that happens in the middle.  Obviously, this arrangement isn’t what everyone chooses or how events transpire for all.  But in the throes of child-rearing, it helps to keep a perspective on who you want to be.  If you want to be all about the kids, then it’s likely they will grow up happily at center-stage and leave happily stage left, and you’ll be left standing unhappily onstage with a stranger.  Keep the action going between you, and let the other characters come and go.

1989b

2) Learn to feed yourself before feeding your family.  This is like the airline adage, “Place the mask over your own nose and mouth before assisting other passengers.”  After her wedding, my mother immediately took up the challenge of feeding her new husband “in the manner to which he was accustomed”, meaning that she taught herself how to make recipes handed down from his nurse/nanny, Agnes.  Her time of early experimentation and solid study in the culinary arts led to her success as an accomplished gourmet later.  I had planned to have 5 years of marriage under my belt before attempting motherhood, but  I got pregnant 4 months after the wedding.  I was immediately nauseated by the smell of food before I’d even learned how to cook on my own.  I lost weight in the beginning of the pregnancy and rapidly after the baby was born.  Postpartum depression reduced me to 98 pounds while I was trying to breastfeed.  I was literally struggling for survival.  Bottom line: learn to cook and eat, even if it seems like the last thing you want to do. 

3) Prepare for delivery.  My mother is a model of responsibility in many ways, not the least of which is her health.  She educated herself about her body and her options in childbirth and made her decisions with my father, I’m sure, but not based on his participation.  He was not ready to be one of those Sensitive New Age Dads who goes to Lamaze or presides in the delivery room.  He stayed at home in 1957, 1959, 1960, 1962 and in 1973.  I’m sure he had other options by the last birth, but his choice was to let my mom “carry on”.  For her first four births, she had her labor induced.  Why?  Well, she was living on the Marblehead Neck and could be separated from the mainland by a storm at any time.  She prepared. 

4) Breasts have a clear purpose.  In America in the ’50s, scientists tried to impress society with  ‘modern’ and ‘better’ ways to live.  It was all about innovation and technology and product placement.  Sound familiar?  Mom wasn’t buying.  She was also not washing and sterilizing and mixing formula.  She had the correct equipment already on hand, thank you.  And she intended to use it.  And when she turned 50 and the doctors told her that her equipment was sprinkled with carcinoma in situ, she said, “Well, I’m not going to worry myself into a state while that progresses in any way.  I’m done using them.  Take them away.”  She’s 30 years cancer free.  A survivor, a pragmatist, an example of responsibility to me.

5) Cotton is best.  It’s natural, it breathes, and it doesn’t irritate your skin.  Use cotton diapers, cotton balls and cotton clothing.  No plastic diapers or synthetic wipes or flame-retardant coating.  Following Mom’s advice, I used a diaper service that delivered fresh, clean cotton diapers to my home every week when I was raising babies in California and Illinois in the late ’80s and early ’90s.  I was amazed to find 4 years ago that there are NO diaper services AT ALL in metropolitan Milwaukee any more.

6) There’s always room for one more, especially in your heart.  This is an attitude of abundance and inclusion that is very generous and non-anxious, which I like.  However, with 7 billion people flooding the global eco-system these days, it begs careful examination and consideration.  Make your decisions accordingly.  Mom gave me some “outside of the box” advice when baby number 4 came along while we were still living in 1050 square feet of house in Southern California.  Lacking another bedroom, another crib, or even another bassinet, The Domestic Engineer suggested we could always pull out the bottom dresser drawer and line it with blankets or use the bathtub. 

1985b

7) Don’t think you’re too old for one more, either.  My mother gave birth at 39 to her last child.  The gap between me and my brother is just 3 days short of 11 years.  Everyone was surprised, even Mom, but the pregnancy was never ‘an accident’, and she finally had a son.  You’re never too old for one more plot twist as well.  I became pregnant after my husband had had a vasectomy, when my youngest was 6.  It was certainly unexpected, but I was thrilled.  I had a miscarriage at 10 weeks, which was not entirely anticipated, either.  Stay light on your feet.

8) Never miss a teaching opportunity.  When my brother was borne home from the hospital, I was 11 years old and my sisters were 13, 14, and 16.  We were ripe to learn babysitting skills at least and mothering skills for the future.  It went over well with prospective employers to tell them that I had been helping care for an infant at home for a year before I started babysitting other children.   As my brother grew, I watched my mother’s parenting from a different perspective.  I noted how much time she took with him, reading to him, letting him explore, listening to his talk, getting involved in his schooling, etc.  I saw patience and willingness and diligence and, yes, worry.  Parenting is not easy; it is complicated, and it requires effort.  But it is rewarding on many levels. 

9) Even worst case scenarios are teaching opportunities.  My mother has survived the number one stress on the parenting list.  On any list.  The death of a child.  Alice was technically an adult at 20, but she was still my mother’s child.  She was driving from California to Ohio to begin her senior year at college.  Alice fell asleep at the wheel in Nebraska, going 80 mph on Interstate 80, rolled the car and was killed instantly.  I was her only passenger.  I saw my mother’s grief first hand, also her capability.  She flew out on several connecting flights to reach me the morning after the accident.  She comforted me in my confusion and shock and made all the legal and practical arrangements to get us back to California.  She navigated the complex waters of all of the ripples and storms caused in that one, tragic moment with grace, with authentic grief, and with compassion for everyone affected.  Somehow, she did all this without a therapist, too.  I think she’s always been good at knowing herself, at learning and communicating, and at being patient and allowing healing to arise.  That makes for good parenting, for your children and for your own inner child. 

Mom (photo credit: DKK)

Mom (photo credit: DKK)

10) Trust yourself.  A happy family isn’t beyond you.  Just remember, you have to allow your idea of “happy” to be fluid.  My mother came to the dinner table one night before my sister was killed, and recounted a visit with some door-to-door evangelists.  She had told them proudly that we already had a “happy Christian family”.  Many things changed beginning that night and afterward that challenged that idea, many more than I can go into here.  Nevertheless, my mother remains happy with her family.  That is her, again, taking responsibility.  She is not a complainer.  She is not dogmatic about attachments and expectations.  She allows herself to create, co-create and re-create happiness as life unfolds.  Her progeny goes beyond the children she has produced to a host of other projects.  Parenting is about life-giving and life-nurturing, a worthy work for a lifetime.  I think my mom is doing a great job….still.  

The family

photo credit: Steve

 

 

© 2014, essay and photographs, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved

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80 Years in Eight Days — Day Number Three: Ten Musical Memories

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Today is Day 3 of my mother’s Birthday Project.  (Happy St. Stephen’s Day as well.  “Come on over; we’ll celebrate getting stoned”…one of my mother’s quips.)  On the docket are 10 musical memories.  My mother began her formal music training at the age of 5 when she started piano lessons.  To this day, she plays and sings for the residents of her senior community quite regularly.  Mom at POP 001

Her musicianship far exceeds mine, even though I have a B.A. in Music/Voice Performance.  She has an M.A. in Church Music.  She can improvise at the piano in various keys as well as play the organ: pedal keyboard and two manuals at once.  I am “keyboard proficient” and can play the pump organ at the museum…meaning, essentially, I can read piano music and ride a bicycle at the same time.  NOT the same skill set.  My favorite arrangement is her at the piano bench and me singing alongside. 

photo credit DKK

photo credit DKK

So here are 10 more musical snapshots of my mother:

1) She is a young girl, her mother calls out proudly, “Anne Louise, play Clair de lune.”  She rolls her eyes.  Not again!  Consequently, I don’t think I’ve ever heard her play it. 

2) I am a young girl, a wee little kindergartener.  Mom tucks me into the bottom bunk bed at night and sings, “Now the day is over/ night is drawing nigh/ shadows of the evening/ steal across the sky.  Jesus gives the weary/calm and sweet repose/ with his tend’rest blessings/ may thine eyelids close.”  She kisses my forehead.  “Ni’ – night, d’good girl!”  All is well.  I hear her voice complete in my memory.  Every note. 

3) Mom is studying at Concordia Teacher’s College.  She needs to do some organ practice, and I’m not in school.  Perhaps I’m sick?  So she takes me with her.  The organ is enormous.  The room is large and institutional.  I sit beside her and watch.  I am fascinated by the pedal keyboard.  Mom lets me crawl around on it, picking out tunes.  I play “Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater” on the black keys, like I do on the piano.  It booms out all over the room.  This is great!!

4) I am about seven years old.  I am the youngest member of our church choir which consists of my parents, my 3 older sisters, and a few others.  I sit in the front row of the loft with the sopranos, leaning out to see the candles in the Christmas Eve procession.  I am singing Midnight Mass with the adult choir, and I am going to stay awake through the whole service!  How exciting to be allowed to sing out like an angel from up here instead of being stuck in the basement in the church nursery!  Anthem’s over.  That sure was fun!  There’s a pile of coats in the corner of the pew….my, I’m feeling sleepy.  I’ll just rest a bit before the next hymn…oh! What?  We’re going home now?  Did I miss the recessional?  Drat!

5) I am about eleven years old.  I’ve been taking piano lessons for 3 years.  I practice before school every morning, while Mom washes the breakfast dishes in the kitchen.  I am out in the living room, struggling away with a new piece.  I hear Mom calling out from behind the swinging kitchen door, “It’s F-sharp, Priscilla!  Look at your key signature.”  I look.  She’s right.  How did she know that from the other room?!  I am trying to play a piano reduction of Dance of the Hours by Amilcare Ponchielli.  I can’t get the stresses right to make the piece dance.  It comes out stiff.  I’m playing what’s written on the page, aren’t I?  Mom comes in, “Think of it this way…try singing in your head… cot-tage cheee-eese, cot-tage cheee-eese…” Suddenly, it clicks!  Oh, this is that piece from Fantasia with the hippos in tutus!!  I’ve got it now!  But cottage cheese?  What made her think of that?!

6) My mother and my piano teacher, Mrs. Lerner from around the corner, are in a community choir called The Village Accents.  They are giving a little concert at the Women’s Club in that Frank Lloyd Wright building in River Forest.  The family must be in attendance.  There they are, this bevvy of ladies in skirts made of green and blue polka dots on white fabric.  Their shirts, and the piano, are chartreuse.  Oh, Lord.  This is embarrassing! (Can you guess I’m in Junior High?  And it’s 1975?)

7) I am in High School.  I am dating a guy whose mother was a concert pianist.  He sings in the community college choir and has a great voice.  My mother highly approves.  She invites him over for dinner.  Afterwards, she sits at the piano and pulls out some sheet music:  Jerome Kern’s “All The Things You Are”.  I’ve never heard it before, but it’s a great fit – the style, the sentiment, the voice.  I am in romantic heaven.  Months later, he invites me to one of his Jazz Choir concerts.  “I have a surprise for you,” he says and puts a piece of paper in my hands.  On the program, I see he has a solo.  Yes, you can guess the song.  He tells me he’s dedicating it to me.  Yes, that was Jim, my husband for 24 years, until his death. 

8) So I go off to college to study, um, music.  I’m 400 miles away from home.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my mother and Jim have been singing in church together and have formed, along with some other church music colleagues, a group called Renascense (or some archaic spelling pronounced ren-NAY-sense).  I’ve done an entire blog post on this memory in the past, titled “Christmas 1982” and you can read it here.

9) Finally, I am a junior in college.  I have just been inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa society.  My grandmother purchased the gold PhiBet key as a gift to me, and I went to the awards banquet, alone.  I’m told a bit later that I should come to the annual Senior Awards Ceremony in May, even though I’m not really a senior.  Well, maybe I am.  I have enough credits to be.  I figure it’s related to the Phi Beta Kappa thing and tell my mother about it over the phone.  “Just a bit of news, Mom.  I know you have a 9-year-old at home to take care of, but there’s going to be this other ceremony…”   That sunny morning in Southern California, I am seated in Balch Hall with the choir and all the senior women of Scripps, glowing with promise.  It’s a beautifully festive day.  I scan the crowd…and there’s my mother!  What?!  She came all the way down here for this little ceremony?  The awards are given out.  The next one sounds interesting: The Gladys Pattison Music award, given to “the most deserving student in the field of music for the purpose of enriching her music library”.  Drum roll, please….yes!  It’s me!  I am surprised; I beam.  Afterwards, I find my mother.  She hands me a little gift.  It’s a music box, wrapped in keyboard paper.  I turn the handle and hear the opening notes of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.  Professor Lamkin, the choir master, joins us and suggests that we all go out to lunch…off campus.  What a treat!  I stare in amazement at Mom, who is not the spontaneous type.  “How did you just up and take off to be here?” I ask.  “Oh, honey.  I’ve been planning this for weeks.”  Oh.  Well, that explains it.

10) And in closing, every medley eventually ends up with “My Buddy”.  This is mom’s signature when she’s been at the piano a while.  No matter what key she’s in, no matter where she’s been dabbling, she always figures out how to incorporate this theme.  “Miss your voice, the touch of your hand, just long to know that you understand, my Buddy….my Buddy,  your Buddy misses you.”  I miss you, Mom.  Thanks for all the music!  I look forward to much more in the New Year!

mom and piano

 

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80 Years in 8 Days – Day 2: 10 Family Foods

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10 Family Foods.  10 Fabulously Festive Family Foods!  (Ah, ah, ah…*thunder and lightening*)

Is this a Muppet Count-down?  No, not really.  This is Day #2 of my mother’s birthday present.  Yesterday’s post introduced the project and 10 Background Bits of my mother’s life.  Today being Christmas Day, I want to tell you about my mother’s culinary talents.  This is a day that we would spend feasting and in high spirits.  Christmas Eve Mass having been accomplished and Mom’s choir commitment completed, she’d turn her attention to Christmas dinner.  There’s so much I could write about, but I’ll keep it down to 10 things, and I’ll limit them to things that I have actually made myself.  Except for this first item…

1) Fruitcake —  You may shudder, but wait!  My mother’s fruitcake is a triumph of dark, rum-and-brandy-soaked cake popping with candied fruits and savory nuts.  The recipe is from Julia Child herself.  Mom used to make it weeks ahead of Christmas in a huge, plastic tub (which later served as an infant bathtub for my baby brother), wrap it in cheesecloth, douse it with brandy and let it age.  A dozen foil-wrapped parcels went out to the most appreciative friends and neighbors.  Now my sister Sarah makes it, and if I’ve been good, I may get one in the mail this year, too.  I have NEVER attempted this on my own.  I doubt I could live up to the legacy. 

2) Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook —  Fannie and I have become good friends, and though my original copy is pretty trashed, I am partner to a bookseller and have a few new editions at my fingertips.  Yes, I can make this…and have!

photo by Steve

photo by Steve

3) Cran-orange relish —  The recipe is on a postcard my mother sent to me when I moved back to the Midwest from California.  It simply says, “1 bag cranberries, 2 navel oranges, 1 cup sugar.  Grind and enjoy!”  I should mention that I’m still using Grandma Marion’s food grinder from the 1940s.  I’ll probably keep using it until that worn out cord and plug start a fire.

pecan pie & cran orange relish

4) Pecan pie (and mince pie) —  Again, from Fannie Farmer. 

5) Lobster — When we lived in Massachusetts where I was born, Mom learned how to cook a live lobster.  I didn’t end up cooking the first one on my own until we were living in California, and I was in college.  My fiance Jim drove home from the fish market with the live lobster on his shoulder just to freak out passing motorists.  I showed him how to hypnotize the lobster by holding it head down and stroking its tail.  When it was limp, dropping it into the pot of boiling water (don’t forget a bit of Vermouth!) was a cinch. 

6) Roast leg of lamb —  Make slits in the outside and insert slivers of garlic cloves before putting it in the oven.  I like rosemary and gravy more than mint sauce with it.  I have a picture of myself one Christmas with a Lambchop puppet on my arm; we’re both looking aghast at the serving platter. 

We can’t feast like Christmas all year long, so here are some samples of every day fare. 

7) Soup —  My mother kept a stock pot in her ‘fridge all week.  On Wednesdays, when she’d be going out to choir practice, she’d make a batch of soup from leftovers and stock that we could eat ‘whenever’ and clean up without her supervision.  To this day, she makes soup every week for the Food Pantry.  Steve and I have dubbed her “Our Lady Of Perpetual Soup”. 

8) Chili —  The family recipe is pretty mild.  Steve adds Tabasco and cheese and oyster crackers, and if I let him really indulge his Milwaukee roots, I’ll serve it on spaghetti noodles.  Texas folk, please avert your eyes!

9) Chicken and rice —  Basic dinner memories: the smell of onions and mushrooms sauteing in butter as the sun goes down.  Add the chicken, rice and liquid to the same pot.  Season with your favorite flavor combinations.

10) Brownies —  Not from a box! Made by melting Baker’s chocolate and butter on a double boiler and adding it to the creamed butter and sugar. Then add the eggs and the flour and dry ingredients.  Memorable mishaps: pouring hot, melted butter and chocolate into the creamed butter and sugar AFTER having added the eggs and watching bits of cooked scrambled eggs emerge.  And my sister putting in half a cup of baking SODA instead of half a TEASPOON of baking POWDER.  The brown, bubbly stuff spilling out of the pan and all over the oven resembled lava!  Cool! 

Tomorrow, for St. Stephen’s Day, 10 Musical Memories…

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80 Years in 8 Days – A Birthday Project for My Mother

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“My sainted mother” (as Gene Kelly used to say of his) is turning 80 on New Year’s Eve.  She is a couple of thousand miles away in California; I am living in Milwaukee missing the sunshine of her warm personality.  How shall I celebrate her life from this distance?  I came upon an idea: post a blog entry every day from Christmas Eve through New Year’s Eve containing 10 things I appreciate about her.  By her birthday, she will have read 80 reasons that I am so grateful for her long life. 

I have decided to start out with “10 Background Bits”, pieces of factual information to set the stage for her “close up”.  First, there is a family history for this kind of project.  When my father turned 60, I presented him with a little typed booklet entitled “60 Memories of My Father”.  The cover was made out of construction paper.  It looked a bit like a school assignment for a 3rd grader, I admit.  But it was made with love.  My father ended up writing his own memoirs 8 years later in response to interview questions I sent him.  2 years after that, he began his mysterious journey into dementia and Alzheimer’s.  For my mother’s 70th birthday, I wrote “!70 Foods 70!”, an anthology of food memories with pictures.  (She is a fabulous gourmet cook.) My mother keeps that in a binder, each page engulfed in a separate plastic sheath.  It looks a lot more professional than my first attempt. (She is also a museum archivist.)  So this birthday project is one of a much-beloved series that has enriched me in the recollection and writing of it and, hopefully, enriched my parents in the receiving.

2) Time: Anne Louise was born December 31, 1934 – a blessed little tax deduction for her folks that year and their first child.  My kids now know her as “Granne Louise”.

3) Place: Fair Lawn, New Jersey. 

4) Mother: Marion Keeffe McFarland.  A tiny spitfire of a personality, ambitious and shrewd, a capable survivor with a twinkle in her step.  My mother and I both wore her long bridal veil when we were married.  The secret she carried to her grave: she never got beyond the 8th grade in school.

grandma Marion5) Father: David Elmer McFarland, Jr.  He was an electrical engineer with Public Service of New Jersey.  His stateside responsibilities kept him home during WWII, keeping the power running, managing 5 Victory Gardens, and being husband and father.  My mother adored her father: he was the calming antidote to her mother’s small furies and mini dramas, a grounding presence with a refreshing sense of humor.  I think I heard once that he played the piano at a nickelodeon… I believe it, anyway.

grandpa David6) Her younger sister, Sandy.  Actually, her name is Marion like her mother, but her nickname distinguishes her.  Her blonde hair, petite frame and bubbly personality came back to my mother’s mind often when I was in her view, since I was the only blonde and the youngest of her 4 daughters.  Sandy was much like her mother: tiny and very social.  My mother was more like her father: lanky and cerebral. 

7) My mother’s natural strengths: precocious and enduring intelligence, musical talent, organization. 

8) Her natural weakness: her eyes.  She was finally diagnosed with myopia and ambliopia at age 5, and wore an eye patch and glasses.  Her walleye makes for poor depth perception, but it gives her the peripheral vision that kept me from sneaking anything past her…ever. 

star9) Growing up: my mother’s stories of growing up sound to me like echoes from an early TV sitcom — pin-setting at the bowling alley for a penny a pin to earn spending money, which was then spent at the movies, often for a double feature; learning to drive on a dirt road around the town’s water tower with her boyfriend, Duff; keeping statistics for the school baseball team and flirting with the players; trips to New York City every year, where her Aunt would buy her a new coat.  Happy days, it would seem. 

10) Becoming an adult: because she skipped a year of school and her birthday’s so late in the year, my mother headed off to college at the tender age of 16.  And not just any college — Radcliffe College.  Her mother had two goals for her: either meet a rich man and marry, or get a first rate education so that you can support yourself.  My mother got both the man and the education.  She graduated in May of 1955, earning a B. A. in English with her thesis on Jane Austen.  She married George William Heigho (Harvard ’55) in September that same year. 

1955bFor a writing class 3 years ago, I was prompted to write my parents’ wedding announcement.  Mom, always a sharp editor, made sure I got it right:

Anne Louise McFarland and George William Heigho II were married September 3, 1955 at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Glen Rock, New Jersey.  The bride is a graduate of Radcliffe College, and the groom is a Harvard graduate.  The couple met at the Canterbury Club on campus during their sophomore year.  Mrs. Heigho is the daughter of Marion Keeffe and David Elmer McFarland, Jr. of Fair Lawn, New Jersey.  Her father is an electrical engineer with Public Service of New Jersey.  The groom is the son of Dorothy Lauver and William Stephens Heigho of Detroit, Michigan.  His grandfather, George William Heigho I, was the president and CEO of Calvert Lithographing company.  The couple will be sailing to England on the Nieuw Amsterdam for their honeymoon, returning in a month to their new home in Boston.  Mr. Heigho will then begin work with IBM.”

This portion of the birthday project also serves as a traditional Christmas Eve ghost story.  The spirits of my Grandpa, Grandma, and father are affectionately internalized in my mother now.  I’m sure she holds many more as well – notably (to me) my sister and my husband.  The lives of friends, family, entertainers, neighbors, writers, thinkers and even fictional characters seem to animate her with exuberant ideas of connection.  Conversation with her is peppered with the anecdotes of a host of souls.  

Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and that chapter of 80 Years in 8 Days is dedicated to “10 Family Foods”.  My mother’s table is the holiday feast I dream of every year.  While visions of it dance in my head, I wish you, Mom, and dear readers, a Good Night.    

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Parenting: Then and Now

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Preschool crush plants a kiss. “Isn’t that cute?!”  Mom takes a picture. 

Grade school crush writes a note.  Revelation: someone likes you.  Mom smiles. 

Middle school crush messes with your self-esteem.  Why and why not?  Mom worries. 

High school crush introduces adult intimacy.  Are there rules?  Mom intervenes. 

College crush invites self-exploration.  What if?  Mom doesn’t know. 

Post-college crush proposes solid possibilities.  What will I choose for myself?

Mom leaves it up to you and breathes relief. 

afterglow

The afterglow: 5 couples around the table, relaxed adult conversation. “Isn’t this nice?!”

Mom takes a picture.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Gone, But Not Forgotten

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In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Gone, But Not Forgotten.”

Well, this is an obvious one.  After all, I am a widow.  How can I forget the love of my life, my one and only husband, the father of my four children and the man who bought me my first Canon (an AE-1 for Christmas when I was 17)?  I am in a wonderful relationship now with a new partner, Steve, and he’s featured in many of my posts.  But Jim is my first love, the man who was beside me for 30 years, from the time I was 15.  So much of my adult formation took place in those years, even though profound change has happened since.  Shortly after Jim died, I became an empty-nester, I sold our home, and I stopped practicing evangelical Christianity.  Gone are my ‘suburban mom’ characteristics…the van, the mortgage, the disposable income, the salaried position with a Christian company in my home town, the prayer groups and Bible studies, the daily involvement with my kids.  My life is definitely different.  I am much more independent and self-reliant now.  But I haven’t forgotten how well loved I was, how dedicated Jim was to taking care of me.  As his best friend said at his memorial service, he was a Prince of a man.  And he was definitely Charming. 

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Weekly Photo Challenge & Photography 101: Triumphs Converging

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Yesterday was a wonderful day, a triumph of change, of many changes coming together.  Thanksgiving is Steve’s favorite holiday, and what’s not to love?  Fall colors, harvest time, lots of great food, a crisp chill in the air, wood smoke, and an all-pervading sense of gratitude for the process of life. 

triumph 2We’ve hosted Steve’s family for dinner at our place for the past 4 years.  “Our Place”, however, is not just a home.  It’s an online book business, which means that our inventory is stored under the same roof.  That roof was replaced this year, bringing inches of old cedar pieces and dust down on top of our piles of books.  It was a mess.  The clean up and resorting was enormous.  But Thanksgiving was the deadline: we wanted to host as usual.  Piles of books, CDs, video tapes and packing materials carpeted all the rooms and stairwells in the house.  We literally had to pick our way through for months.  Steve took infinite trips up the narrow, steep stairs to the attic, laden with heavy boxes and stacks.  But yesterday was a triumph!  The place was clean, the table glistened, the food was colorfully delicious, and everyone had a great time.  And Steve got to put his feet up and read aloud in Italian.

triumphWe are really getting good at team work.  The next triumphant convergence will occur tomorrow, when we get together with all my children and their ‘significant otters’ for a holiday which we call ‘Galassoween’.  Five couples, two generations and as many various lifestyles merge to create a feast of conversation and edible togetherness.  And it will take place in the house that my daughter and her fiance have rebuilt. (see this post, “Harvesting Hope”)  I’m looking forward to it!  (but first, I have a lot of dishes to wash…)

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Saints, Souls and Scorpions

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What are we, really?  What is our essence?  Is it distinct? 

What a burning question!  How we long to know that we are special, unique, inimitable and eternal in some way.  Our egos seek definition, boundaries and refinements.  This is me!  That’s not me! But is that really how the Universe is made up?

Carl Sagan says that we are made of star stuff.  Ah!  What a beautiful idea, connecting us with the cosmos, the eternal past and the eternal future.  Thich Nhat Hahn says that we are ‘continuations’, the recycling of energy into life.  Environmental education seeks to instill the understanding that we are a part of, not apart from, the natural world. 

I love that today is a day for celebrating those connections.  All Saints’ Day, Dia de los Muertos, Steve’s Birthday, my sister Dharam’s Birthday, all of those holy notions come together today.  We ‘inter-are’, we interconnect, we are interdependent with all forms of life.  It so happens that those born on this day share the zodiac sign of Scorpio.  That reminds me that we are interconnected with forms of life that are not human.   And somewhat scary.  I saw my first wild scorpion in Texas one week ago.  He was promenading around in the light of the bathroom facility at Guadalupe National Park’s Dog Canyon campground in the middle of the night.  I was making a night visit without a flashlight but aided by the starry host. Had he not been directly under the security light, I would have missed him.  He was pale and small, and I walked right past him in my drowsy stupor.  It wasn’t until I was ensconced in the bathroom that it dawned on me.  “That was a real scorpion!” By the time I emerged, he had moved on.  I was sorry I missed a better look.  And I wish I had a photograph. 

The manifestations of star stuff that we get to see are fleeting and fascinating.  Enjoy them.  Look long and hard.  Take pictures if you like.  You may never see this combination again.  And you will see other combinations to delight you instead.  What a thing to celebrate!

© 2014, essay and photographs, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved