great expectations

Driving overland tomorrow, back to Chicago, at the tail end of a year long something or other that I'm still trying to sort out.

I plan to drive by Hoisington, Kansas, where my Nini was born, and which her family left Grapes of Wrath style when the earth kicked up dust as fine as face powder in 1935.

I'm not expecting much from a little town where the only Yelp review is for the Dollar General store (4 stars, one review, "good place to grab a few cheap things"). I'm just going to see what I can see.

ritual = receptacle

Green Tea
Originally uploaded by Patrick T Power.
© 2007 by Patrick T. Power.
All Rights Reserved.

I wanted to write about this, just note it, briefly, how ritual = receptacle, how something about the funeral this last weekend -- the Mass, the Meal -- helped to wrap up the grief, make it manageable. Contain the soft, wet edges that kept spilling into everything before.

I needed a pic of course, and then Patrick T. Power posted this, which he shot last night as we wrapped up the meal that we shared before I packed it up and headed home from Ann Arbor. He was kind enough to participate in a usability study that we were doing, schelpping all the way down from Lansing, and kind enough to share stories and a little Teriyaki after.

Another important receptacle: Stories. How we tell them. Why we tell them. That we tell them.

How they shape our world.



p.s. do you see that glimmer of silver light on my hand in the left hand side of the frame? that's my Nini's birthstone -- a ruby -- in a pave setting. it was a gift from my family for coordinating her funeral. so unnecessary. such a tremendous treasure. with an inscription that reads: "you are loved."

these gifts

Tired. So tired. But grateful and glad. Grateful that my Nini made a dignified exit, sudden and swift though it was, grateful that she had all her wits about her, and a room full of her children, too.

Glad that we were able to give her a tremendous send off, almost all parties present, each stepping forward in the fullness of their gifts to send her on her way; the wind at her back, the sun on her face.

The kind of funeral that led one guest to remark, almost apologetically, that it "was the best funeral" she'd ever been to.

Grateful that I'm rich in family. Such a beautiful, generous, deep-feeling family.

Reminded how much ritual matters, how much music can soothe, how important it is to gather together, to remember, to cry, to tell stories. And to laugh.

Reminded how much each small kindness, of which Nini sowed so many, blooms full into fruit and scatters its seed on the wind to the far distance. Reminded how one small gift of kindness can change a life.

Reminded how much kindness, how much love, has shaped mine.

Posting by cameraphone from SFO.
Return leg to Chicago delayed, of course.

colophon

Goudy Old Style is a graceful, balanced design with a few eccentricities, including the upward-curved ear on the g and the diamond shape of the dots of the i, j, and the points found in the period, colon and exclamation point, and the sharply canted hyphen. The uppercase italic Q has a strong calligraphic quality. Generally classified as a Garalde (sometimes called Aldine) face, certain of its attributes—most notably the gently curved, rounded serifs of certain glyphs—suggest a Venetian influence.

— Wikipedia

Two years back I chose to set Nini's book in Goudy Old Style for reasons that I kept to myself at the time (mostly because I believe it's best that we typefreaks stay quiet about the strange synaesthesia that we experience around letterforms).

But now I'll spill: I felt it had the firm uprightness of a Catholic girl from Kansas, the solid serifs of a businesswoman who tackled work as though it were a sacrament, the elegance and grace of a hostess who knew how to put on the swank, and the warmth and eagerness of a woman who loved to learn and thoroughly enjoyed her life.

Today I set the program for her Funeral Mass in the same typeface.

For all the same reasons.

of woman born

Spent the weekend tucking Nini in, making arrangements for her funeral and helping to organize the dispatch of her apartment in Phoenix -- surrounded, most importantly, by family.

Which included (on this round): Two cousins, my uncle (the lone brother among six sisters) and all of my aunts. Every single one of my five brilliant beautiful maddening voluminous aunts with their hearts as big as the hills.

Each one of them their heart breaking, each one of them doing what they needed to do next each in their own way: one making sure that every one of us has the dollars we need to make it to the funeral; another drafting the eulogy; the other suggesting a desert hike; most of them in their turn making sure that everyone was eating, and then everyone: sifting and sorting, packing and planning.

Several family meetings were called, of course; important matters discussed. There was much chatter and cross-talk and sometimes hurt feelings and occasionally the volume reached such heights that I wished I had brought my noise canceling headphones along, but mostly it all worked out and mostly there were hugs and good tears and the early stages of settling into this place called grief.

And I spent the weekend amazed to be among them, sometimes startled to observe habits and gestures that are so innately and immediately their mother's, sometimes shaken to tears by thinking I was seeing my Nini pass in the hallway, when in fact it was just one of her daughters.

One of her brilliant beautiful maddening voluminous daughters, so different each from the other, each possessing a unique facet of the woman who brought them here, each sparkling full of life like she did, each uncannily strong with a sweet creamy center.

Each one of them gorgeous. Each one of this woman born.

king of the road

king of the road
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

The view from my Nini's bed, where she passed away yesterday under the careful compassionate care of hospice and in the company of four of her six daughters. The wall is covered with dozens of pics, of which these are only two: Her husband, my Bumpa, and the Silver Streak trailer they
traveled in together through North and Central America.

The dozens and dozens of others are of family and friends and memories of a life well lived.

Posting by cameraphone from Phoenix, AZ where I'm saying goodbye.

Ite, missa est.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes --
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round --
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought --
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone --

This is the Hour of Lead --
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow --
First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go --

— Emily Dickinson

Nini passed this morning. Just as my flight touched down she let go.

I'll write more later: Right now there's much to do.

Thank you friends, for your kind words, wishes, prayers and hugs.

hold me.

So I travel, oh, I dunno, let's say a LOT, through airports, most of it wearing that shit kicking business armor that I put on when I'm on the clock.

And, after the initial strip down, I usually move through security without incident, gather my goods and continue to the gate.

But this morning, after rising at 3 AM and driving through the dark and the cold to board a plane that will take me to the many tears of Phoenix where my grandmother lays dying instead of the weekend of laughter long ago planned with friends; planned long before Nini -- who was expected to live to 100, hale and strong and sharp -- felt the slow ache in her back, the shooting pain across her chest, the knocking on the door of normalcy called cancer.

So this morning, of all mornings, they decide to mark me and pull me into the "special" line, call me solicitously by my last name and swab my boots and paw through my bag.

This morning I'm the enemy, and, with my exoskeleton split wide open to expose my soft underbelly, they pull me into the pen and pat me down with unfeeling hands sheathed in plastic gloves.

This morning, when all I ache for is to be held close, to remember where I end and the rest of the world begins, this morning they brush their hands unfeelingly across all my extremeties as though I'm packing malice aforethought, and then, just as they tip me past the point of tolerance (how can anyone so acutely *not see* another human being?), turn abruptly and send me on my way.

Outbound to Phoenix.
To grandmother's house we go.

silent meditation

My Nini, my mother's mother, aka She Who Shows Up, is mother to a huge brood of seven kids, each of them with kids of their own, and many of those with kids as well. She is much loved, because she loves so much, and often visited and spends much effort balancing the distribution of attention to each and all.

Since my Bumpa passed away earlier this year she's been nursing a sore back; in the last few weeks she's been experiencing strange persistent chest pain. The pain was so bad that she was admitted to the hospital so that they could figure out what was going on, and they discovered that a morphine drip wasn't enough to quench the angry ache. So they gave her something stronger.

One of my aunts was down there visiting when this all reached a head; another flew down as things started to heat up.

The doctors are still testing, they haven't pinned it down exactly, and yesterday the doctor told her that they hoped to have a diagnosis for her today.

My Nini being the practical Oakie that she is figured they knew enough by now and said to the doc: "Tell me straight: what do you think I have?"

And he said: "We think you have an aggressive form of cancer."

And this is what Nini did: She asked her kids not to call. She asked her kids to ask their kids not to call. For 24 hours. So that she could sit and think in peace and make some decisions about the rest of her life.

Call on Saturday, she said. Give me a chance to think. Give me room for my thoughts.

And so I will. I'll wait awhile to show up. And while I wait I'll hold her in my heart. No thoughts. Just hold her there, surround her with love. Surround her with life; the life she gave me.



p.s. Last year Nini self-published her memoirs -- here's a snippet »

And, while we're still in the holiday season, you really oughta try Nini's cherry jello recipe »

(cameraphone shot from this summer's Rocky Mountain road trip; shot in Silverton, CO, 9k+ feet in the air)

showing up

My maternal grandmother has one skill that I admire above all the others – even more than her knack for trading stocks online (profitably), canning produce and jams and jellies like nobody’s business, and raising a brood of seven kids in the 60s.

She knows how to show up.

Whenever there’s a crisis, whenever somebody goes down or someone they love goes down, she just shows up.

And does all the things that one should do when showing up: Chores, errands, all the little things that get thrown into suspended animation when life stops to accommodate something new. Something traumatic.

She did it when my Dad went down, and my parents have been divorced for nearly 35 years. Just showed up and stayed at the hotel, watching the grandkids, while we camped out at the hospital.

My dear friend Bonita is blogging at long last, and just after she saddled up her father was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer. She’s documenting the progression and its impact in lucid, present prose.

Showing up. Getting it done.

This is how we love each other.

Mom, Dad and me »

chill until firm

Jello didn’t figure into my childhood much at all. Sure, there were the school lunches – those glistening green squares arrayed in Pepto-Bismol pink finger bowls. But my stepmother was a secular Jewish hippie who subscribed to her own unique dietary laws: Mostly vegetarian, mostly locally produced (the Co-op was big around our house – things weren’t called organic back then, but they pretty much were), and if it was meat it was kosher, by G-d.

And Jello, that middle American staple derived from the hooves of, well, hoofed animals, was not kosher.

Which is not to say we didn’t talk about Jello around our house. My stepmom made sure we understood just how heinous it really was, and we then floated that information to the kids at school when the lunch ladies brought out the jiggling squares. This information was met with the same incredulous horror and circulated with the same glee that greeted the rumor that Bubble Yum was made of spiders’ eggs. Which is to say: It had no impact on the consumption of Jello at Slavens Elementary School at all.

Despite my early programming, Jello has always intrigued me as the stuff of wonder and legend, but that’s not to say that I ever developed a taste for it – I never have.

With one exception: That would be Thanksgiving.

It has long been a tradition, among the descendants of the house of Gooch (my maternal line), to partake of foodstuffs that not one of us would ever serve up at any other time of the year. This includes green bean casserole, cranberry sauce still bearing the ridge marks of the can that bore it, and yams topped with blackened marshmallows -- not to mention a 12 pound frickin’ turkey.

Queen of all these seasonal delicacies is The Jello. Nini’s Cherry Jello, to be precise.

Unique among Jellos for the requirement that it be dissolved in boiled Coca-Cola, Nini’s Cherry Jello was most certainly culled from one of those swank company cookbooks of the 1950s. But its provenance is uncertain, if only because I’ve never asked. Once I came of age I merely received Nini’s Cherry Jello recipe with due reverence and awe, invested forthwith in a shiny new Jello mold -- and then I made the Jello.

Because there are some things you don’t mess with -- and tradition is one of those things.

Nini’s Cherry Jello
1 small package of cherry jello
3 oz. of Philly cream cheese
16 oz dark sweet pitted cherries
9 oz crushed pineapple
1 bottle of Coca-Cola
fistful of pecans -- maybe two

Strain fruit syrups into measuring cup and add enough Coke to equal 2 cups.
Boil.
Dissolve Jello within the boiling liquid.
Remove from heat.
Sprinkle in cream cheese chunks.
Cool until liquid is the consistency of unbeaten egg whites.
Fold in cherries and pecans and pineapple.
Chill until the guests arrive.

as fine as face powder

I spent the evening giving my grandmother's book a final going over -- one last proofread before it goes to the press where we'll have it self-published.

My maternal grandmother is a very matter of fact woman who has laid down the story of her life -- as a child in Hoisington, Kansas who crossed the country with her family to McCloud, California during the Depression once the dust got so bad that the birds stopped flying, the sky went black, and the jack rabbits ran rampant down Main Street -- in a very matter of fact way.

And yet it never fails to make my heart ache by the time I’m done giving it a read.

Being her granddaughter probably has something to do with it: Her history is my history, so it matters just a little bit more.

But she also pulls off some passages that leave me speechless.

Speaking of a visit to the home of the landlord from whom the family leased their farmland in Kansas to pay the rent:

One day it was my turn to go along and I was so impressed by a large glass cup just filled with sharpened pencils. I never forgot it. I only had one or two pencils to last me the entire school year. My idea of wealth was to be able to own plenty of pencils.

Writing about the weather that would change the course of her life:

Then in 1931 when I was 10 years old, the rains stopped.
...
The dust storms began. The dust was as fine as face powder and almost black in appearance. It invaded every space.
...
I remember my Dad driving on the way home in the afternoon and the wind was blowing so hard and the dust was so thick and black it was like driving in the middle of the night. It was difficult to stay on the road. My Dad had to follow the fence posts to find his way home. The dust filtered into our Model A Sedan. It was scary and difficult to breath.

What she found in California was a mixed bag. Her family settled in McCloud where her father at first worked at a lumber mill, but her father, being a farmer, preferred to work out of doors, and so he took his family packing to pick fruit in the fields around Modesto.

In high school she lived with a family in McCloud so that she could finish school; when summer came she joined her family in the trailer her father had made and worked the fields and in a cannery. She loved her life in McCloud and was deeply ashamed of the poverty of her family’s life in Modesto. She writes:

Now is when it gets hard to write as this was a most difficult time in my life. If you can just imagine being fifteen years old, soon to turn sixteen on July 17, and no place to call home. All ten of us were traveling in one car pulling a homemade trailer with all our wordly possessions. We were planning to go from place to place to pick fruit on our way to our final destination of Modesto.
...
It would be hard for anyone who has not lived through this difficult time in our history to understand the tremendous amount of unemployment, poverty and homeless people. Camps were set up everywhere. Laundry was always hanging from ropes or fences. Small children were playing in the dirt.

The town people and fruit growers really didn’t want these “Oakies” (everyone was called the despised name of “Oakie” regardless of which state you were from). They only wanted cheap labor in their orchards to pick their fruit and now they didn’t know what to do with all the “Oakies” from the Dust Bowl.

Excerpted from «My Story: A Memoir» by Elva Marie Rathbun Gooch, aka my Nini.

everyone an oakie

Nini's Travel Journal
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

What hadn’t blown away with the dust, my grandmother and her family packed into their family car and moved from Hoisington, Kansas to McCloud, California (in Northern California, near Mt. Shasta) at the tail-end of October in 1935.

My grandmother, who would grow up to become an exacting business person and a successful online trader, kept a journal of their trip. This is one spread from that journal: Day Two, on which travel expenses, including gas, meals and lodging, came to $11.42. Click here to view large »

This entry is of particular interest to me because I did a lot of my growing up in the Denver area and I can readily see the terrain that she maps out in her careful chronology: Aurora, Denver, Broomfield, Eldorado. Dinner in Lafayette. It makes it easier to see it through my grandmother's eyes, leaving everything she'd known for something entirely new, and insisting, as she did, that she wear her entirely impractical new school shoes for the journey.

I'm helping her typeset her memoirs. They should be ready for self-publication within the next month or so.