A Hard Day

On Sunday morning I put up Mom's tree and reorganized all the stuff in my car before heading East. It was hard to leave her. She cried. If I could be in two places at once I would have stayed with her longer.

A funny shaped icicle hanging from a bush.My sweet Mama. She didn't complain about having a picture taken without her makeup on.

I was trying to smile while explaining to Mom how to use the camera.

Mom waving goodbye from the driveway. She lives in a beautiful place. I wish it wasn't so far from everything.

Road Trip, Days 1 and 2

Yesterday amidst hugs and tears and laughter, I had a great send-off from the chocolate shop...boy, do I have treats!! Rachel is kind of like our Mom in that she loves to send us off with food...(if you have Thanksgiving at her house, you can be certain you'll go home with turkey and dressing). I was saying my goodbyes when she pointed me in the direction of the store front and handed me a large shopping bag with instructions to fill it up. I had fun doing that and I felt a bit of nostalgia. Christmas in Rachel's store has a bit of a magic feel to it. I'm going to miss that, but I'm looking forward to delivering goodies to my mother and others. I can't be too specific about who is getting what because this blog has ears, or at least eyes...

Rachel and I decided that if I get stranded or buried in a snowdrift on this trip, I have enough food in my car to last a month. Seriously...a box of Clementines--I love those things and they're easy to peel and sweet, ummm, a banana, (well, 1/2 a banana as of tonight), two large and two small chocolate and caramel covered fuji apples, pecan pralines, almond bark, english toffee, caramels, chocolate santas and tin soldiers, and if that weren't enough, sweet Jazzy sent me off with two large containers of homemade granola and a container of lemon cookies. Did I forget anything? Probably.

In addition, (for all you die-hard worriers) I have a gallon of water, snow chains, gloves, pliers and various sized sockets, jumper cables, emergency light sticks (the florescent kind you snap and they glow for awhile), and a flashlight. My phone is with me, my gas tank is never less than 1/2 full, my tires were recently rotated and balanced, the car received an alignment, my brakes were checked and my oil changed. I have some windsheild fluid that has antifreeze in it, and my
windsheild wipers are in good shape. I also have a map of the United States and a trip tik booklet from AAA with my route mapped out exactly (unless I decide to take a detour into the wilderness back roads (not really, just kidding))

By the time I said my goodbyes, stopped at the atm for cash and was actually on the road, it was 4 pm. I drove across the new span of the Martinez-Benicia bridge for the first time and then on through Vacaville and Fairfield. (Did you know that Vacaville is really a strange combination? Vaca means cow in Spanish, and ville is, I believe, French for a small town, go figure), anyway, the drive was uneventful and as I drove up into the mountains and over Donner, I had the strangest feeling that I'd done that before---like---a week ago?? I also thought about a geography teacher who explained how the weather gets colder so many degrees for every thousand feet in elevation. I couldn't remember the details, but that knowledge, and the fact that I left so late in the day, made me watch the temperature drop as I drove higher into the hills. Dirty snow rimmed the highway, but otherwise, the roads were clear.

I drove as far as Lovelock, Nevada last night. Stayed at the Royal Inn which has an autographed picture of Merle Haggard from 2006 sitting on the check-in counter. According to the gentleman behind the desk, Merle stayed there last year, as did Shania Twain and someone else "country" and famous, but being a mostly non-fiction writer I hate to guess and be wrong, so I'll just admit that I can't remember the third person, but the older gentleman was very proud of his claim to fame and I pretended to be indubitably impressed.

This morning I found out an important piece of information for travelers: Lovelock, Nevada does not have a bakery, a donut man, or a restaurant that sells homemade cinnamon rolls. Not even Safeway has anything close. I did, however, find out that the local Chevron sells Krispy Kremes. Too late; I had already gassed up at Two Stiffs Market, which is right across the street from the Whiskey Creek bar and grill and down a ways from the Cowpoke Cafe which I would have gone to had they been open...

From Lovelock I drove on...and on...and on...(I wonder how many sagebrush bushes grow in Nevada, or are they called Sage brushes?) I used the cruise control most of the way, stopping in Wells to gas up. When I arrived in Salt Lake City, it was dark and trying to snow. Traffic was slow but the drivers were friendly. They let me in whenever I had to change lanes. As I drove north on I-15 to Kaysville, I listened to music from The Nutcracker. I thought about Owen, who went to see that recently with his mother. I wondered if he can identify the instruments by the different sounds they make...when I arrived I was welcomed, literally, with open arms by Clytie and Spence, a couple who served a mission in Bay Point two years ago. They are lovely people and I'll tell you more about them later. Right now, I'm going to turn in for bed. Since tomorrow my destination is White Rocks, Utah, and that leg of this journey will take only three hours, I'm going to sleep in so, goodnight John-boy, goodnight Meemaw, goodnight Poppa, ...zzzzzzzzz

I am moving

to Baltimore very soon. I had planned to wait until the end of summer and go before grad school starts, but the plan now is to drive across country, arriving in Baltimore around the 15th of December. I feel great about this and I've received nothing but support for my decision, even though it will be difficult to say goodbye. A whole lot is happening now also, and the time before me feels as though it will shrink and disappear like a dark highway seen from a moving car. I'm working on Christmas presents so I can leave them here rather than ship them from the east coast. I'm doing the cooking for Thanksgiving this year--when have I not?? Then I'm going to Idaho with family right after Thanksgiving to attend and speak at a funeral for one of the dearest women in the world--my mother-in-law--a bittersweet experience. When I get home I have to pack--books, china and crystal, clothing; get the car tuned up and ready; decide on which things to take with me and which things to leave for the moving company; and there are a few people that I must see in person before I leave. Have I forgotten anything? Oh yeah, I really, really want to weed my garden one more time and leave it looking satisfied and happy. My niece Jasmine is planning to take it over after I go. Thanks, sweetheart! I can't think of anything that would make me happier.

In case anyone is wondering, I'm also seeing my oncologist right before I leave. My Kaiser will transfer to the Baltimore/D.C. Kaiser area. Woo-hoo! I'll continue with health care but as far as I'm concerned, the cancer is gone and it's not coming back.

My 76 year-old mother has decided to be my traveling companion from Utah--about 1/3 of the way there. It's been many years since I've had Christmas with my Mom. Her presence in Baltimore will make four generations under one roof. With the passing of my mother-in-law, I realize how precious the time with my own mother is. Mom can be a hoot but I've learned that when it comes to her, expect anything. Time stops. Expectations drop. It's a different world and I just go with the flow. At any rate, Mom and I will be making memories. (Just last night she told me about a staged food fight she and my dad had while they were entertaining guests! Forty-nine years old I had never heard that story until now.) I'm going to let AAA map our route for us, but maybe we'll meander a bit and stop in the old neighborhoods in Kansas City and/or St. Jo. I'm also hoping to blog during our trip, at least a time or two.

Bottom line is that I really do feel led to Baltimore by the hand of the Lord. This is not a move that I'm taking lightly. Many unknowns await me and sometimes I have these mini anxiety attacks where I stop what I'm doing and concentrate on breathing...inhale...exhale...Most of the time though, I have the feeling that I'll enjoy many new and wonderful experiences. Please don't be sad. I'll be back often for visits. After all, my little Rolan is here as are my sons and many others I hold dear. Speaking of Rolan, I copied this photo from Michele's and Clayton's blog so you can see how fabulously cute my newest grandson is...

Black Magic, Black Dress; My Childhood in Clothes 2

Ach, Mutter,This old, black dress, I have been embroidering French flowers on it. [1]

When my mother was a little girl, my grandmother worked as a tailor at the Sears and Roebuck factory down by the Mississippi River, a job she held during the Great Depression and for many years after. She became an expert seamstress.

Mamaw’s hands, gnarled with purple and blue veins and hard pointed fingernails that she filed regularly, were not rough, but they weren’t soft either. Sometimes she painted her nails a soft pink color, but most of the time her hands were busy—hanging clothes on the line—a continuous supply of socks, shorts, and smocks worn by me and my four brothers and sisters, chopping onions, peeling hard-boiled eggs, making the beds with box corners, rubbing our croupy chests with Vicks Vapor-rub, and always—sewing. Her brown wicker sewing basket was always nearby.

She seemed to be constantly patching pants, replacing buttons, darning socks, or embroidering a new face on an old stuffed animal. Her stitches and her imagination could transform something plain into an item of beauty. She made Barbie doll clothes out of fabric scraps and matching night gowns for my rag doll and me. But the most amazing thing she did was to make her stitches disappear while she sewed.

I sat by her on the couch many times as she wet the tip of a long thread with her tongue, then deftly passed the end through the eye of a needle, pulling the two thread ends even with each other, then wrapping them swiftly around her finger and into a secure knot. Into the fabric the needle went, and out again, up and down, every stitch disappearing as she worked. "Over, Mamaw! Let me see the back!" But the backs were always void of stitches too, and Mamaw always laughed at my perplexion. Many times she tried to show me how to sew, but my stitches glared from the fabric like the cracks on the school playground. I felt special whenever I wore something she had made. Store bought clothing just didn’t have the same feel and I began to wonder if Mamaw was magic. But like all Southern women of her time, Mamaw followed the social rules of etiquette, even when sewing, the same rules that governed how a lady looked, acted and even felt:

1) Never wear white in the winter
2) Black is for funerals or adult formal wear, not for children
3) Always wear gloves to church, or carry a pair if you haven't had time to wash them
4) Never carry a purse that doesn’t match your shoes
5) Always carry a hanky—one with your initials embroidered on it if you’re lucky
6) Always wear clean underwear in case you get in a car accident and have to go to the hospital
7) Before you leave the house, make sure your slip isn’t ‘showing.’


One Easter, Mamaw bought matching dresses of yellow and white dotted swiss for me and my younger sister. I don’t know if she was too busy to sew, or the dresses were on sale, but I knew it was supposed to be a privilege to wear store bought. Our yellow dresses screamed "Springtime!” They were delicate and lacey but the feeling wasn’t there.

When we returned home after Sunday services, the rain had stopped but water was still flowing down the gutter. The air smelled sweet and felt balmy and clean. We were leaving soon for Easter dinner at Mamaw's house, and Mama warned my sister and me not to get dirty, but we just wanted to float boats down the street—curled leaves and some empty walnut shell halves, pretending that fairies were going for a ride down a wild river. Fifteen minutes later, my mother’s face crumpled into disappointment when she saw the mud splatters on our new dresses. She hurried to get a rag and soap, but the stains didn’t come out completely.

When Easter came the next year, I was surprised when my grandmother pulled a piece of black velvet from her sewing closet and began measuring me. By the end of the day, I was wearing a beautiful new jumper over a white blouse, but something wasn't right. I turned slowly for my grandmother while she looked the dress over with a crease in her forehead. She tugged on the hem, pulled the dress at the back to test wiggle room, smoothed the jewel neckline. “It fits, Mamaw, it feels perfect!” But she continued to frown. “Aha!” she said a moment later, and reached for her mysterious sewing basket. I watched my grandmother’s hands while she rummaged through various containers: a miniature Whitman’s chocolate box that still smelled like chocolate even though it was full of snaps; an empty mayonnaise jar filled with buttons of every shape and color; a cigar box fraying at the edges, the mysterious contents of which were always changing. Mamaw's sewing basket not only held needles and thread, but zippers, rolls of ribbon and lace, rosettes, hooks and eyes, iron-on patches, thimbles and various small tools—contents that kept me entertained when I was little, and continued to fascinate me later.

Suddenly as from thin air, she held up two pink rose appliqués, one in each hand. “Ohhh!” I had never seen anything so beautiful. I fingered their soft raised texture. Within minutes, Mamaw had sewn one to each shoulder of the dress, the stitches disappearing with each prick of the needle. I viewed myself in the mirror. The pink roses glowed like the first tulips of spring. I smiled at my grandmother's soft expression and she smiled back. Now I had proof positive. I was going to wear black velvet. In the Spring time. To church. On Easter Sunday. My grandmother was indeed, magic.
[1] Wallace Stevens (1879–1955), U.S. poet. “Explanation.”

Three or Two in Aqua Blue; My Childhood in Clothes, 1.

It was a store-bought dress. I don’t know how I knew that at such a young age.

The little dark-eyed girl's favorite Sunday dress was a pale aqua dotted swiss with a smocked bodice and short ruffled sleeves, like fairy wings with white lace on the edges. She felt like a butterfly when she wore it, and every week in the old Presbyterian Church in downtown Memphis, someone always stopped her mother or father to comment on how beautiful she looked. Her mother would smile down at her, sometimes placing her white gloved hand on the top of her head gently, or reaching out to touch her if her father was holding her in his arms. The little girl thought she had the most beautiful mother anywhere.

The chapel was large with three sections and it sloped down toward the front. The little girl, her parents, and her older brother and sister always sat in the same place, the right side section, fifth row from the front. The little girl liked this spot because whether she was sitting or standing, she could see all the beautiful stained glass windows--the tall elegant ones in the front above the altar, and the more simple but still pretty ones on each side of the big room. She never got tired of looking at the blues and reds and yellows, the intricate designs and the way light through the glass made patterns on the opposite walls. She especially liked the stained glass window of Jesus with a kind look on his face, holding a little lamb, and when the sun was in the right place in the sky, it shined through the stained glass, lighting up Jesus in a way that made people stop and stare.

The little girl thought that the tall, dark benches they sat on every week always smelled like lemons and the same smell that came from the crack between the cushions of her grandmother's couch. She had to stand up to see over the backs of the benches, and her mother let her do this because she was a quiet child, obedient and sweet. The big round woman sitting on the row behind the little girl's family always raised her eyebrows and held out her large wiggling fingers to invite the little girl to sit on her ample lap. The little girl was rather shy and she'd smile and look away, but she was fascinated with the strings of shiny round beads hanging around the woman’s neck and down the front of her clothes, so she'd look at her again when she thought the woman wasn't looking at her.

There were many colorful hats in the congregation too, soft pink or green ones with little nets that hung down over the women's foreheads, or hats with beautiful flowers on the front or back. The little girl thought the hats were very pretty and she’d spend time looking, comparing one hat to the next. She thought some hats looked funny, especially the ones with feathers sticking up, but she always loved the tight simple little hats her mother wore that matched her dresses perfectly.

About the time that the little girl began to grow bored, the little girl's mother would say, "Look! There's your daddy!" while one by one, the choir members came through a special door in the corner behind the pulpit. It was a small round door like the one in a fairy tale. It opened in the wall, and many of the men had to duck to walk through it. The little girl's father was rather tall and she thought he looked so handsome standing in the back row of the choir in his long blue robe. One time she waved and said, "Hi Daddy!" real loud. Her father laughed, but her mother whispered in her ear that she had to be quiet in church. The little girl noticed that her father would always smile at her, but once the music began, he put on his serious face and watched the choir director. He sang with his mouth open wide like an egg and little lines in his forehead. Then the choir members would go back through the little door and after a few minutes, the little girl's father would appear next to her in his dark suit. Then the minister would stand up, walk to the pulpit and hold on to it with both hands. When he began speaking, the little girl’s mother and father would sit up straight and encourage her to listen. But the little girl didn't understand all of the minister’s big words and she would soon lose interest.

Sometime later, another man would walk down the aisle with a large silver plate in his hands. The little girl knew that people put money in the plate and sometimes the little girl would watch her father reach in his pocket and give a few coins to her older brother or sister, who put them in the plate just like a grown-up. When her father passed the plate across her to her mother, the little girl would look quickly to see the shiny nickels and dimes. She always wanted to play with the tray and its contents, but this was not allowed. So she would stand up again and watch the plate going from hand to hand, down the rows, around the room, and listen to the little plinking sounds as the coins were dropped.

After awhile, the little girl would fall asleep leaning against one of her parents with the sound of her father's warm, rich voice and her mother's sweet clear soprano singing: "All creatures of our God and King, lift up your voice and with us sing, Alleluia! Alleluia..." Later, the little girl would wake up for just a moment, long enough to know that someone, usually her dad, was carrying her out to the car to go home where a delicious Sunday dinner was waiting.

Countdown to the Holidays

The last time I did a count-down, it was not a fun one: Chantel was moving to the East Coast. Now, however, I'm doing 2 countdowns: one til the end of this semester (14 days) and one til I hop a plane for Baltimore (21 days). I have two big papers left to write, one for my 18th Century Novel class on the book Fanny Hill which is a graphically sexually explicit and problematic text and one on post-colonial issues in African communities. I have my choice of topics to write about for both classes, but I found Fanny Hill to be so problematic, stereotyping both male and female sexuality, that I decided to sound off.

As soon as school is over, I can concentrate on the holidays. I love the lights and the music of this season. I've never been to the East Coast and I can't wait to be with my muffins, Owen and Soren.

My mom is still here. I got up this morning at 4:45 so she could be to the airport on time, but she is ill and having trouble breathing. I feel bad that she is sick, but honestly, I'm glad she is still here. I don't get enough time with my mother and the older we both get, the more I appreciate her role in my life.