memories

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The Kid’s Visit

The kid was here so we did a swap of items for her to take with her move to Portugal and for me to have here until my days wind further down. Down and out. Of course most of the things I am passing on are actually from my mother and father or from the children’s childhoods. I didn’t think to take a photo of the books we had from the 1892 copyright edition of Character Sketches from Romance Fiction and Drama, so I’ll copy from the internet. They look much the same as ours do, all being quite old and from the same publisher, Hess.

Some samples from the books are on a slide, above. These are published on the internet and are available from various sellers, some of them quite expensive, likely dependent on the condition. (One always hopes for virtuous reasons.) In any case, mine were obtained free of charge from a friend’s uncle Herman when he died many years ago.

Throughout their childhoods the girl and the boy enjoyed looking through the volumes with me, oohing and aahing at the photos and the stories. Although antiquated and attic do come to mind. Memories of youth and enjoyment are measured through the pages along with pressed flowers left behind by the two old men who once knew the pages fresh. We found an old playbill from the early 1900s written in German, a directive on how to properly open a book, and the crumbling leaves from an iris to name a few of the treasures therein. We had as much enjoyment from the written language of the stories and descriptions as from the photos. It was so easy to enter into that past, that time, both theirs and ours. The books now left with her, to travel to another country with memories safely enclosed.

Amongst the treasures returned to me to stay behind is the baby dish from the World War II era that had been mine. There was no reason for the kid to keep it, hence its return. While this too is loaded with memories—they are mine—of no consequence to others. Perhaps there is a monetary

value but that is not the point of the articles being exchanged. Hence the dilemma spoken of earlier in a blog writing about my mother’s dishes. It’s just a thing. It’s just a thing that sparks memories and love. But only with certain people. And that is its real value.

So where do these things go, where do they go from those of us who want to travel lightly, to empty our suitcases before we take our last breaths? Or best of all, spend as many years as possible unencumbered, free from baggage to travel lightly with Spirit rather than weighted by possessions that possess? I don’t think our possessions define us, but maybe they do.

In the end it was a lovely visit but did I end up with more possessions than I gave away? Did she?

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Sorting

Eventually it comes to this. Someone dies and you must go through their items. Otherwise known as going through their junk. Then later, much later you’ll need to go through the leftovers and sort again, the things you kept and never used. You still can’t bear to do away with the treasures that are nothing but things.

Her plates. The ones she had to have to go with the fancy silverware. The silverware itself. Never used, never polished. Your own unused too. “No one entertains like that today.” That’s what we say, we hippies returned to hippy life.

Today we share gummies and play games or talk of Ethics or Morals or The Reality of God. Better yet, Who is God? Certainly no longer the “Father in Heaven” of our youth. What an answer to tide us over. An answer that doesn’t help with the sorting.

The holding onto is clearly an attempt to hold onto our youth. The memories of certain dinners. The memories of Safety that can no longer be replicated. Just as my son’s blanket won’t make me safe. My daughter once said, “Mom, Joel is not in that blanket.” And yet sometimes I found him there, sometimes as I cried and hung onto it, I saw him as a child, I heard his voice.

So now I wonder what I should do with those plates I’ve never used in all the time since she has been gone. Now here it is. The move to end all moves. The final move, out of the country yet. The move where only essentials are taken. Preparing for that is going to take a while. It’s a good thing I won’t be embarking until next year. But the plates are going to be long gone before then.

Joe Bentley Wisconsin post and photo. From the memory palace, if I were taking the back roads.

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Books

About the accumulation of books, this is the best I’ve read. As posted by Novel Nerds.

“Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired (by passionate devotion to them) produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can peradventure read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity … we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance.”
— A. Edward Newton

Photo credit: @tillylovesbooks

This is so true as to at times be pathetic, this star-struck gazing at the shelves. Sometimes I’ve just sat and reveled in, admired the books for what I know they contain. The words they hold. Their mysteries and the memories. I had never considered the reach toward infinity. Eternity maybe, but not infinity.

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This

What it is like until the other dies. And why it is more than final when gone. And why longing has new meaning, a new edge. Another part of self erased.


“I know now, after fifty years, that the finding/losing, forgetting/remembering, leaving/returning, never stops. The whole of life is about another chance, and while we are alive, till the very end, there is always another chance.”
Jeanette Winterson – Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Posted by Ravenous Butterflies

Richard Bergh – Nordic Summer Evening, 1899-1900
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Hot Cross Buns

It’s officially Spring, and on days like these, I recall my mother coming home with hot-cross buns. They were proffered with a flourish and the announcement that we could have them on that day, that one very special day. I don’t remember, however, why or which day was so unique. And we were indeed allowed to have the Hot-Cross Buns on that day alone. But those days, those days were Catholic days, and they held many a ritual glory. When I close my eyes I see white ribbed socks turned over to measured perfection above black patent-leather shoes, yellow tulips in the center of the dining room table, a decanter of coffee and small plates next to them.

The house would smell of Spring, of open windows and soft breezes, of the lace curtains that would dance in the sunlight. In those days Lent was taken seriously. Easter would be a celebration and an end to fasting and abstaining from meat. Thusly, on the Good Friday before Easter, before the celebration of the Messiah! we would acknowledge that day and the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning. We would have Hot-Cross Buns.

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When Elizabeth the first ruled England (1592) it was decreed that hot-cross buns and other spiced breads were not to be sold other than at burials or Good Friday, or at Christmas. There was in fact a punishment for doing so—all of the forbidden baked goods were confiscated and given to the poor. James the first continued the tradition in 1603.

Poor Robin’s Almanac in 1733 published a London street cry, the first definite record of Hot-Cross Buns:

Good Friday comes this month, the old woman runs. With one or two a penny hot cross buns.

Nothing can be found for earlier records or recipes.

The more recent recipes for the baked goodies can include descriptions for the meaning or symbolism held within the ingredients. The cross itself has evolved to mostly include a sugar frosting:  confectioners’ sugar, milk, lemon zest and vanilla. This is how my newly purchased, boxed grocery-store treasure is completed. I’ll sing the song on Friday.

Hot_Cross_Buns_detail,_March_2008

—Information/background & photo from Wikipedia—