Category: Beauty & Meaning

Credo II (Morningside After Dark edit)

Marta Drew10 Comments

Three times a year — once in January, once in February, and once in April– a sympathetic and broad-minded crowd gathers in the basement of Morningside Church in Edina for a night of stories and songs on a particular theme. The event is free (donations to the church are always appreciated but not required) and always both life-and-spirit-affirming. 

Last night, I did my third MADark reading. I’m always honored to be included, but last night felt particularly special somehow. Anyway, here is the essay I read, a version of “Credo” I edited for last night’s theme: Growing Pains.

 

Lizzie on Henry's shoulder

 

First and most of all, I’m for love –the kind you need and want from the people who give it best.

 

I stand for Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. I am against mocking people for believing in God and I am against mocking people for not believing in God.

 

I believe in deep quiet, loons, and swimming with horses, which I tried once at Camp Lake Hubert the summer I was 15– it felt like flying. I believe in an Afterlife … not harps and fluffy white clouds so much as a clarity, an understanding, a lifting of all the veils that make us think our stubborn, self-destructive thoughts. I am for a Heaven that reconciles my vision and God’s, a big explanation, God saying “this is why and this is why and this is why.”

 

I’m for Grandma Betty, who kept rosaries in her desk and fed me soft, pillowy doughnuts rolled in sugar on Sunday mornings after Mass. I’m for the tiny, Technicolor strawberries she grew in her garden, which I picked and brought to my dad and grandpa in a metal pail, one by one.

 

I am for Grandpa Skluzacek, whose pickup truck smelled of wood shavings, tobacco, and the fish he caught alone in secret lakes and I am for Grandpa Thacher, who took me to get stitches on my chin when I was 4 and told everyone how brave I was when I wasn’t.

 

Camp Lake Hubert

 

I am pro-cabin, pro-camp, pro-canoe. I’m pro-Constance, who meets me at the back fence now and then to exchange lemons, eggs, sour cherries, solidarity. I’m for the teary girl I saw at the elementary school last October, willing herself down the hall. I was her once. I am pro-aloneness, anti-loneliness.

 

I am in favor of the simple, peaceful Lonsdale cemetery where my dad and other members of my family are buried, but against all the reasons it’s full. I am in favor of tough old ladies and soft old men and I am all in for Minnesota. I believe in flannel sheets, down comforters with the windows cracked, the romance of a December wedding. I would relive mine a thousand times if I could … I probably have.

 

Yes to my dad and stepmom, who honored me by dying when I was right there in the room and yes to my mom and stepdad, who spared me that sorrow. No to a crystal ball, though I badly want one. No because I would use it irresponsibly.

 

I swear by birthday cake for breakfast and I swear by my mom, who taught herself the Club Med line dance with a tape she bought at the gift shop and practiced in our living room until it was perfect. I am passionately pro-nerd.

 

43rd birthday cake for Brian 2015

 

No to mealy apples, no to fake vanilla, and no to both phone and in-person solicitation. Yes to bread, GramBea’s rice pudding, lake swimming, being up late at night. Yes to wilderness and protecting it.

 

I believe in the peonies my dad grew and brought to my house in vases each spring; the Eames chair where I sat in his lap when I was five, watching Little House on the Prairie on Monday nights; I believe in the bronze stars and purple heart he brought back from Viet Nam. I believe in anyone brave enough and wise enough to choose tenderness.

 

I’m for the brilliant nurse who helped me bathe my toddler at Children’s Hospital when she had wires glued to her scalp and I’m for the brilliant neurosurgeon who performed her brain surgery at Mayo when she was three years old. I’m against staying in the hospital with your child alone – don’t do it.

 

Sweet Brian and Carolinbe post EEG

 

I am for raising yourself as you raise your kids, I am for Dad, who worked at my high school and would make a convincing camel face for anyone who asked and I am for Mom, who called me Lamby and Lovebug right up until she died when I was 41.

 

Yes to GramBea playing piano out on her four-season porch as I was coming in from school, yes to the beautiful connection between my children, which is what I have always hoped for. Yes to the way my dad and his sister would laugh together in a kind of harmony and yes to letting your kids see you cry. No to anyone who makes you feel like you’re crazy for feeling too much.

 

Yes to reminding people they are not alone – including myself. Yes to growing up together, to people who are afraid but keep trying anyway.

 

Yes to you, my friends from long ago and far away and yes to you, my friends from always. Yes to everyone who is here now and yes to those who couldn’t stick around for one reason or another.

 

I stand for you.
I stand for me.
I am for you and me.

 

Bridesmaids 121199

Winter

Marta DrewLeave a comment

Pamela Park Christmas Day 2013

 

Thoughts, rest your wings.
Here is a hollow of silence,
a nest of stillness,
in which to hatch your dreams.

~Joan Walsh Anglund

 

Are you a winter person? I don’t know if I would say that about myself, though winter is an important time for me. I repair my wells in January and February: mercy, resolve, insight, reverence.

 

I like to hide out this time of year, to deeply rest. Once the kids are in school, I curl up on the wood floor in front of my fireplace and read poems or close my eyes. Sometimes I stare out at the park. There is something reassuring about seeing the world in black and white when I’m grieving or lonely, like Nature feels it with me.

 

I imagine that deep inside the frozen trees are their summer selves, recovering from storms, sorting out everything they’ve witnessed. Anyway, that’s what I do this time of year. That’s what winter is for.

 

 

Spring Pamela

Credo

Marta Drew17 Comments

Henry blue onesie 8

 

I’m for love –the kind you need and want from the people who give it best. I’m for Wonder Woman and wonder women, Dreamers and underdogs. I am against scapegoating, nepotism, and recklessness.

 

I stand for democracy, honesty, and integrity. I believe in voting for presidential candidates who have studied the United States Constitution. I am pro-Obama, both Barack and Michelle.

 

I am firmly pro-camp-song, pro-knitting, and pro-cookbook. I am for gluten, butter, and sugar and I am against discussing the amount of carbs, fat, or evil in food before eating it, especially if someone else made it.

 

Christmas Croissants 2014
© 2015 Marta C Drew

 

I am staunchly pro-understanding, pro-empathy, and pro-humanity. I believe in birthday cake for breakfast and I believe in mothers who taught themselves French with language tapes and sounded exactly like Julia Child when they practiced. I am pro-nerd, anti-glitter.

 

I stand for deep quiet, loons, and swimming with horses, which I tried once and which felt like flying. I believe in an Afterlife … not harps and fluffy white clouds so much as a clarity, an understanding, a lifting of all the veils that make us think our stubborn, self-destructive thoughts. I am for a Heaven that’s about reconciliation between our vision and God’s, a big explanation, God saying “this is why and this is why and this is why.”

 

I’m for God – believing in Him and trusting Him, even when I don’t understand …especially then.

 

I am against racism, narrow thinking, and sanctimonious bullshit. I am for  including my friends in my family, forgiveness (though I’m not good at it yet), compassion, and generosity. I am for staying in touch. I will always be for connection, devotion, and affection.

 

I am anti-bully, anti-narcissist, anti-terrorist, anti-gun. I am passionately anti-Trump. I stand against cynicism and against women selling each other out. I am for Hillary and I always will be – she would have been fantastic.

 

I am pro-men, anti-mansplaining, manspreading, manhandling, and mancolds. I am pro-mama, pro-family, and pro-choice. I believe in music, art, and teaching lots of both in schools.

 

I am for Harry Potter. I’m for the friends who fought with him and I’m for Snape, who didn’t but still fought for him. I am for the inimitable Alan Rickman, gone too soon. I am for heroes who stand up for the vulnerable and I am for all of us encouraging each other to be our full, best selves.

 

I am anti-liar, anti-coward, anti-hypocrite. I am against wanting to be cool when you’re a grown-ass adult, against anyone who’s mean to waiters, and against political whores (I’m looking at you, Paul Ryan).

 

No to mealy apples, no to fake vanilla, and no to gratuitous violence. No to entertaining yourself by watching videos of people –especially children—getting hurt. No to humor that’s designed to humiliate, no to both phone and in-person soliciting. Yes to romance, lake swimming, being up late at night. Yes to wilderness and protecting it. Yes to fat, sweet blackberries on top of a vanilla cheesecake that’s more custardy than cakey. Yes to Rose Levy Beranbaum, who taught me how to make one.

 

I am pro-cabin, pro-campfire, pro-canoe, and all about Camp Lincoln and Camp Lake Hubert. I am against mocking people for believing in God and I am against mocking people for not believing in God. I am particularly pro-waffle but not necessarily anti-pancake.

 

Camp Lake Hubert

 

I am pro-late-night, pro-early-morning, pro-privacy. I am both pro-Western and pro-Eastern medicine. I am for the old crabapple tree behind my grandma and Grandpa’s house on Cooper Avenue and I am especially for the rosy pink, tart applesauce GramBea made with its fruit. I will never be able to recreate it, but I’m still for it.

 

I am for the roses, hostas, and peonies my dad grew – he knew all their names—and I am for Simon Pearce glass, which is both beautiful and practical. I am for Simon Pearce himself, whom I met a couple of years ago. He was lovely, just as I expected him to be. I am for Chef Thomas Keller, the poet Mary Oliver, Meryl Streep, Leslie Odom, Jr, Patty Griffin, and all others who devote themselves to beauty and understanding the human experience.

 

I am anti-mid-winter, when everything is the same color and looks like the inside of an ashtray. I am also against overhead lighting and music that doesn’t match the occasion or location.

 

I am in favor of the simple, peaceful Lonsdale graveyard where my dad and many other members of my family are buried, but against all the reasons it’s full. I am in favor of tough old ladies and soft old men and I am all in for Minnesota. I am for flannel sheets and down comforters with the windows cracked.

 

I believe in silent understanding and I believe in singing together – my Uncle Will taught me how important that is, how healing it can be. I believe in daydreams, naps, nostalgia, and Expressive Math. I don’t believe in making people guess how I’m feeling.

 

I am pro-humility, pro-unity. I am pro-aloneness, anti-loneliness. I am pro-Brussels-sprout, anti-beet. I am pro-flower and pro-flour. I am for GramBea’s rice pudding (no eggs) and I am for Sue Burritt’s World-Famous Chocolate Cake, which may or may not actually be world-famous, but should be. I am anti-canned-cranberries – you won’t change my mind about that.

 

IMG_20161025_182551

 

I am for giving teachers and administrators the benefit of the doubt, unless you’re ready to stand up and take on the job yourself (trust me, you’re not). I am against hyper-competitiveness and unreasonable standards for kids and I am guilty of both, though I’m working on it. I am pro-public-schools, pro-public-libraries, and pro-public-lands. I am for dads who make very convincing camel faces and I am for moms who call you Lamby and Lovebug right up until they die.

 

I am pro-lilac, rosemary, lavender, and peony. I cannot support cooking vegetables until they’re gray, nor can I support desserts that don’t taste as good as they look. I believe in putting a dash of almond extract in my sugar cookies and I believe in bourbon. No beer for me, thank you.

 

Yes to GramBea playing piano out on her four-season porch as I was coming in from school, yes to the people who camped out with me at the hospice house when my mom was dying, yes to the beautiful connection between my children, which is what I have always hoped for. Yes to the way my dad and his sister would laugh together in a kind of harmony and yes to letting your kids see you cry. No to people who make you feel like you’re crazy for feeling too much. No to Mitch McConnell, Devin Nunes, and Fox News. Shame on all of them.

 

Yes to reminding people they are not alone – including myself. Yes to friendship and shared history, to people who are afraid but keep trying anyway. Yes to women reclaiming their time and yes to men who really listen. Yes to singing in the hospital and yes to therapy animals because really, what other kind is there?

 

Yes to you, my friends from long ago and far away and yes to you, my friends from always. Yes to everyone who is here now and yes to those who couldn’t stick around for one reason or another.

I stand for you.
I stand for me.
I am for you and me.

 

White Peony II

Time Devoted

Marta Drew4 Comments

 

Rice pudding 101915

 

When I was a little girl, I spent at least one night a week at my grandparents’ house. They lived in my school district, so I could ride the bus right to their house and run across the wide, grassy lawn to the open door. Inside, GramBea was in the kitchen, already filling a baggie with raisins and apple slices for my snack. I played outside while she worked on dinner and practiced her piano on the 4-season porch.

 

When I came back in around dinnertime, I sat at the pretty drop-leaf table in the kitchen and watched GramBea stir a knob of butter into a pot of brown rice, then peer into the oven to see if the chicken was done.  Now and then, she stood still and listened to whatever news Tom Brokaw was delivering from the tiny television next to the stove, nodding a little or snorting in disgust. Dinner, when it was served, asked nothing of me. Everything GramBea fed me was familiar, nourishing, and somehow more than the sum of its parts.

 

If I was lucky and the weather had been cool enough to keep the oven on all day, dessert was rice pudding –served cold in a white tulip bowl. Rice pudding is still my ultimate comfort food. It has only six ingredients: milk, rice, sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, and a pinch of salt. The technique, too, is simple — mix everything together in a deep casserole dish and stick it in the oven for roughly three hours, stirring every once in a while until you think it’s done. It couldn’t be easier, but it’s like any ritual: you have to give it careful, sacred attention to do it justice. You can’t merely spend three hours making rice pudding … you have to devote three hours to making rice pudding. That distinction took me a long time to understand, but I get it now. I am the only grandchild who really loved it, so when GramBea made rice pudding — stirring every 30 minutes for the first couple of hours, then after another 20, then maybe 15, then two 10-minute intervals at the end– she was giving me more than just her time. There was something else in there, too. Devotion.

 

I want to give my life some careful, sacred attention and do it justice.

 

A couple of months ago, I bought a little daybook and began keeping a daily log of my activities. One of the reasons for this new habit was to shame myself into being more productive. Once I had been forced to write “8:00-noon: Facebook and whatever” a few times, I picked up my knitting needles again and put myself on a strict cooking and baking schedule.

 

The other reason, the more important reason I began keeping a record of what I do each day, was to make sure my days are at least partially made up of meaningful work and activities that reflect who I really am (or at least who I’m trying to be). I want to give my life some careful, sacred attention and do it justice.

 

Annie Dillard says, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

 

That isn’t great news for those of us who spend our days in minivans with bickering children. Anyway, I only mostly agree with it.  On most days, I spend my time: I get my stuff done, I keep my promises, I enjoy myself or I don’t. I suppose you could say that’s also how I spend my life. But there are also days — or at least parts of days– I devote: to nurturing, comfort, protection, love, community, and everything else that matters to me. So that means my life is made up of that devotion, too.

 

For time to be devoted, not merely spent, I have to give each moment more than just my attention — more, even, than my full attention. The time I devote becomes more than a commodity, more than something that can be spent. Time devoted is me offering my best available self  to a broken corner of the world I can reach: does someone need to be fed? Comforted? Protected? Loved? I am here. I give myself to that need in this moment.

 

The time I devote becomes more than a commodity, more than something that can be spent. Time devoted is me offering my best available self  to a broken corner of the world I can reach …

 

I wish there were a widely accepted formula for how to balance Time Spent with Time Devoted, but even if there were, I wouldn’t be able or willing to apply it. Sometimes I approach what I’m doing with the deepest reverence but then can’t sustain it; sometimes my work doesn’t turn out to be worthy of my devotion; sometimes I run to the grocery store, intending to pick up a couple of things for lunches or a rotisserie chicken for dinner, and wind up buying the ingredients for rice pudding. I’m surprised by devotion as often as I plan it, so intention isn’t always what distinguishes one kind of time from the other. I intended to spend last weekend relaxing with my family after a rather shaky start to the school year, but wound up devoting most of my time and myself to supporting a family I have never met, who just lost their little girl. I think part of devotion is reception; if I’m asking the questions about who needs me, then I have to be willing to hear the answers above the roar of my own plans.

 

And part of devotion is discernment. I can’t give everything I have to everything I do … if everything is sacred, then nothing is.  On most days, I will spend my time: I will get my stuff done, keep my promises, and enjoy myself or not. But on some days I will pour milk, rice, sugar, and vanilla into a deep casserole dish and add a pinch of salt, grate nutmeg over the top. I will put it in the oven, stir all afternoon, devote my best self to it, feed it to any broken corner of the world I can reach until it becomes more than the sum of its parts. Until my life becomes more than the sum of its parts.

 

Rice pudding Dish 112815

 

GramBea’s RICE PUDDING  

           
2 quarts milk (2% is best in my opinion, but of course you could make it with 1% or whole; I wouldn’t use skim)

½ cup long-grain white rice

½ cup sugar

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract

pinch of salt

freshly grated nutmeg
Preheat oven to 325˚F. In a deep 2-qt casserole, combine first five ingredients, then grate nutmeg on top. Bake at 325˚F for about an hour and a half, stirring with a wooden spoon every half an hour.  Then turn oven up to 350˚F and bake until pudding thickens to desired consistency, stirring every 10-15 minutes. Cooking time should be between 2 ½  and 3 hours.
Cool pudding to room temperature and then chill it in the refrigerator, at least 2 hours or overnight.

GramBea served it plain, but I add fresh bananas and whipped cream 😉

 

The First Season

Marta Drew4 Comments
November trees_edited-1
© 2012 Marta C Drew

If I were in charge of seasons, Fall would come first. I am not just saying this because I look impossibly sexy in Fall clothes (though that IS a reason). I am also saying it because it makes more metaphorical sense; for me, life begins with death.

 

I’m not talking about being Saved. I’m talking about the way nature works, both in the physical world and the human psyche. If I start with Spring, with babies and tender shoots and open windows present from the start, then I am taking it all for granted; it’s merely the scenery, a given. But if I start with the death of an aunt, whose high musical giggle returns in the baby, if I start with a withering plant whose seed is at the center of a fresh plant, or if I start with  a closed window that someone or something must open, then there is no mere scenery because everything is always growing, connected, telling the story. That feels true to me.

 

Something is always dying back –sometimes dying altogether– so that a newer, more resilient something, fed and strengthened by whatever has been lost, can grow in its place. A bird, a tree, a daffodil whispers everything it has learned about survival to the egg, the seed, the bulb and then falls back, generously gives way to the new thing.

 

Everything that’s living –in the world and in us– is made up of everything that has died.

 

The same evolution happens in a healthy human spirit, right? Ideas, relationships, plans and philosophies die back to engender new ones, which die back to engender new ones, which die back to engender new ones. That’s us growing, even after we stop growing taller. Everything that’s living –in the world and in us– is made up of everything that has died. That’s much more hopeful, if you think about it, then the idea that life, the moment it appears, begins winding its way inexorably toward death. That’s depressing.

 

If I were in charge of the calendar, Spring would be the third season. The warm sunny days, the baby animals, the soft colors, the daffodils would mean almost nothing if they didn’t follow Winter’s blank, frozen months. The snow, the chill –that’s what gives Spring its context, its value.  We open the window, we watch to see what grows back to reassure us, what grows fresh and new to delight us. We remember what was there before and are grateful to see its influence, its contribution to what has grown in its place. Spring is as much an ending as a beginning.

 

And Fall is as much a beginning as an ending. I’m seeing the trees begin to change color, the plants and flowers starting to dry out and die back. I’ll be watching to see what’s new next Spring, even in the trees, which we humans regard as constant. They are indeed more constant than a lot of things, but they still allow their leaves and dying branches to drop every year. They still allow themselves to bend, to fall, to be struck by lightning, to burn, even to die if that’s what it takes to grow something new.

 

Fall is my favorite season, my new beginning every year. It is the season of letting go, which I am never very good at, so I learn from watching Nature, who is very good at it (just think of all She’s lost). Every Fall, I practice dying back: I stop trying to revive withering plants outside, I let dying branches drop. I close windows. I allow parts of myself to bend, to fall down, to be struck by lightning, to burn, even to die. It’s fine, it’s good, it’s the beginning of something new that will grow there –a fresh idea or relationship or plan or philosophy. Every fall, I am the bird, the tree, the daffodil, whispering what I know to the egg, the seed, the bulb. I am also those. I am growing, connected, telling the story.

 

Human Nature

Marta DrewLeave a comment

Lake Hubert

I have never really considered myself much of a nature girl. Every camping trip I have ever been on has been mandatory, trying to sleep in hot weather without at least a fan makes me hostile, and I don’t cope well with mice. Bugs are icky, pooping in the woods is icky, worms and toads and dead fish are icky. Really, I can’t even talk about bats.

 

I’m more of a postcard naturalist. I love the moon, clear lakes with sandy bottoms, and deer as long as they don’t wreck my garden. Rainstorms are magical and sexy as long as there isn’t a power outage. I like the ocean as an idea, pictures of elephants, and knowing Alaska is out there, just waiting for me to take a semi-luxury cruise through it. I like bonfires built by ruggedly appealing men in soft, worn clothes until the smoke starts getting in my eyes. Then I’m done.

 

You think this is a princess thing, but it’s not a princess thing. When I was young, I happily bounded through the woods in rainstorms with my cabinmates, shrieking and giggling at the thunder and lightning. I did the high ropes course at camp several times, inching my way across split logs and rope bridges 50 feet in the air –no problem. I was the one who routinely flung herself, fully clothed, off of sailboats to catch the buoy when it was time to come in. I made decent fires, I cooked and ate dehydrated food when that was expected of me, I bathed in the iron-stained lakes of the Boundary Waters between Minnesota and Canada, and completely submerged myself in the bog more than once. I could both portage and steer a canoe and I didn’t whine or cry about (most of) it. There was a time when I could rise to pretty much any outdoorsy occasion.

 

I’m more of a postcard naturalist. I love the moon, clear lakes with sandy bottoms, and deer as long as they don’t wreck my garden.

 

But now I have Caroline. The first time she was old enough to be aware of a power outage, Brian found her sitting at the bottom of the stairs, scared and disoriented because both her monster light (a nightlight with three little lambies on it known for scaring monsters away) and her white noise machine had turned off without explanation. It was still dark, there was a lot of wind, thunder, and lightning, and so Brian tucked her in bed next to me, where I spent the next 45 minutes trying to calm her down enough so she could stop shaking. I’m not exaggerating.

 

Just about a month ago, on the 4th of July, we rented a pontoon with my husband’s family. Caroline, who is six, had been on a boat before and was happy to do that, but when we stopped to swim, we had to anchor in a spot too deep for her to stand. Brian ferried her to the shallower water so she could splash and play with her sister and brother–the heat index was something like 110 that day — but once I got in, she wrapped her little tentacles around me and refused to touch the bottom.

 

She relaxed as long as I was holding her, but once it was time to get back on the boat, there was trouble. The water was just a bit too deep for me to stand, so I tried to swim her to the pontoon, which proved harder than I thought it would be. She was heavy, even in the water, and I was having a hard time keeping my head up. Caroline, sensing that we were no longer on solid ground, began to panic, pushing my head under to stay afloat –a classic response from someone who feels like she’s drowning; a classic illustration of our particular mother-daughter relationship.

 

Still, I want to try and be receptive to Nature –I can relate to her intricate, wild order.

 

Luckily, we didn’t have far to go. We got her onto the ladder, I caught my breath, and we were both fine. Well, she was. The water, which I have always loved and where I have always felt strong and comfortable, had betrayed me. It hadn’t scared me enough to drown me, but it had scared my little girl enough to drown me. When I see lightning or hear thunder, it is Caroline’s fear that tightens my chest. Anticipating her fear has taught me to be afraid of the same things that frighten her. She went through a phase last summer when she would scream and cry every time she saw one of those gross boxelder bugs in the house, so I learned to fear them, too. Darkness scares me because it scares her.

 

It’s hard to be friends with Nature when she’s always terrifying my vulnerable little daughter.

 

Still, I want to try and be receptive to Nature –I can relate to her intricate, wild order. I like how she’s always trying to show us that everything and everyone is connected, even if it’s not always easy to see how. This week, the Drewlets and I are staying with my dear Julie and her little boy, Elijah, at their cabin on Pelican Lake, a few miles from Lake Hubert. The two lakes are not the same, but they are the same. They are not next to each other, but they are connected. Pelican Lake is bigger, quieter, with an island and more beaches; Hubert is more intimate, criss-crossed most days with bright sailboats and their tiny, fearless captains perched high above the whitecaps. On Hubert, you hear bells from Camp Lincoln and Camp Lake Hubert; on Pelican, you hear Elvis from Breezy Point Resort.

 

The Brainerd Lakes have different characters, but chances are that if you love one, you’ll love another. In the important ways, they are the same. And If you are the kind of person, like me, who can feel herself healing on a cellular level as she approaches Nisswa, Minnesota, then you and I are the same. If you are willing to let yourself be changed that way, then we are the same. If you have a child like mine, whose fears are so intense that they make you afraid, then we are the same. No matter how different we are, we are the same. No matter how far apart we are, we are connected. That’s human nature.

 

A Year

Marta Drew2 Comments

Corn Tomato Gratin Lunch 2011

A year is not as long now as it used to be. Twenty years ago, a year was a long-term relationship, seniority at Victoria’s Secret, enough time to become BFFs. Now it’s not even long enough to bother introducing myself to the neighbors or unpacking my wedding china.

 

Back then, a year was long enough to fall in and out of love six or seven times (sometimes with the same wrong boy, sometimes with several wrong boys), decide (for real this time!) to pursue eleven or twelve different careers, drape my ratty Uptown walkup in pretty fabrics and feel perfectly at home. I don’t remember giving a thought to the next place until a month or two before the lease was up. It didn’t matter — home was wherever I took my boom box and Pier One votive collection.

 

Now I’m here, my stuff is here, my family is here in this house, but I still don’t really feel like I live here. This is mostly my fault –I’m not invested because I’m too aware that we’re only here for a year. I’m almost 40 now, so a year is an entirely different unit of time than it used to be –longer than the time it took for my little peanut to complete preschool, kindergarten, and 1st-3rd grades combined, but not as long as it takes to stuff my Duchesses in their jackets, snowpants, hats, mittens (“I can’t find my ‘nother mitten, Mama!”), boots, and scarves before they tell me they have to tinkle. It’s just a year, I think to myself, so why bother doing much of anything except waiting for the next thing, the permanent thing?

 

I have never been good at living in the moment –I am forever looking way back or far ahead.

 

A disposable year …that’s how I’ve been thinking about it. Something like the mandatory canoe trip at camp every summer: it wasn’t a trip I would ever have chosen, I didn’t love every minute of it, but it showed me some rare, wild beauty and deepened my friendships with the other girls, so I was glad enough to have had the experience in the end.

 

Still, I liked it better looking back on it from the other side (that first post-canoe-trip shower was heavenly). Once it was over, I could fully enjoy the camp experience I had actually signed up for — sailing in adorable outfits with full hair and makeup in case one of the boys’ boats got close enough to see me, movies in Senior Lodge on rainy nights, and winning the extra scoop of ice cream with camp chocolate sauce in horsengoggle. And sitting out on the balcony of Clubhouse during cabin meeting with Liz, laughing our asses off because nobody knew where we were. And lying on my back in LT cabin singing “Take it to the Limit” by the Eagles with Marlys and Betsy. Oh, and bagel dogs –I’d go back to camp just for those.

 

Camp…sigh …I digress.

 

I have never been good at living in the moment –I am forever looking way back or far ahead. I suppose that’s a hazard of being a creative writer-type; I need psychological distance from the events in my life before I can write about them (I’d be a horrible reporter). I get through whatever there is to get through and make sense of it later. Spending a few years in hell mode will do that to you, too.

 

It’s a good strategy for processing trauma and intensity, but when the whole family is sitting in a dark movie theater wearing 3D glasses, giggling at Madagascar III, I want to be there with them. When Julie comes over eating Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch out of a tupperware container to sit with me on my porch and ask where the hell the summer has gone, I want to be there with her.

 

Even though I didn’t actually sign up for a year in a rental house, I want to participate in this softer, easier time in my own life as its happening …as Brian and I are dating again, as I am reading novels and puttering in the kitchen and yard again, as a year –maybe for the last time– is once again stretching out for me into a unit of time long enough to feel perfectly at home, to be glad for the experience.

 

Tell the Truth

Marta Drew2 Comments

George Skluzacek Third Grade

 

“Tell the truth” does not mean the same thing coming from my Gypsy dad as it does coming from my WASP mother. My dad wants the Storyteller’s Truth –poetic and universal; my mom wants the Reporter’s Truth –accurate and fact-based. I have no idea how those two made it thirteen days together, let alone thirteen years, but let’s just accept that as one of life’s enduring mysteries and move on, shall we?

 

Everyone believes Gypsies are shameless liars, but really, we’re just storytellers. Storytellers –the good ones, anyway– are supposed to lie (the polite term is “fictionalize”) to get to the Truth, the Part that Matters. If I say I went to a back-to-school picnic with my family tonight, spread our blue blanket in the grass, and felt our tiny piece of earth break off and drift away from the other neighborhood families forever, then you know –I HOPE– that’s not accurate. But you still understand what I’m trying to tell you, right? You understand that I’m telling you the truth about how I feel here, that I know we don’t belong, that I can’t pretend anymore that we do.

 

If I had told you that we went to the picnic, got there at 6:27 pm, unpacked the ribs Brian made and the Corn and Tomato Gratin I made, tried (and failed) to get the kids to eat both, fed them baby carrots and Jell-O cups instead, let them play on the playground for a little while, and went home, then you would have an accurate report of our evening. But no truth.

 

My dad knows when I’m embellishing. He also knows the embellishments are there to tell him something important. He knows what to listen for. I love that about him.

 

Of course, Accurate Reporting has its merits. If you can’t remember where you parked the car at the Mall of America, you want to be with my mom, who will tell you the car is in the West Parking Ramp on Level Three (Hawaii, yellow), on the Nordstrom side at the edge looking over IKEA. You don’t want to be with me (though I always park outside of Nordstom), because I’ll tell you a story right then about how I feel about IKEA, how I always love it when I’m walking around in there but get everything home and feel ashamed about not being able to pull off that young, fun, Swedish-cool look in my own house. You don’t care –you just want to know where the damn car is.

 

I respect facts, I suppose, but for me, they’re usually beside the point. “Did you really say that?” my mother will ask me when I’m telling her a story about how I reduced some bitchy acquaintance to a sniveling mess. The answer is no, usually, but what does that matter? I imagined saying it, I wanted to say it, I felt like saying it.

 

No story I tell is about what I said, what she said back, what I said after that. The story is about how I felt, how I feel talking about it now, so if I write fresh dialog in the retelling, it’s only in the interest of stripping away the non-essentials to reach authenticity and principle. I don’t know if it’s a Gypsy thing or just a Skluzacek thing, but my dad has always understood that. He’s a smart, perceptive man –he knows when I’m embellishing. He also knows the embellishments are there to tell him something important. He knows what to listen for. I love that about him.

 

I know all kinds of people who report accurate facts all day every day but never tell the Truth. Facts matter, yes, when you’re talking about grocery lists and taxes, but when it comes to talking about my life, I’m a storyteller: if you want to Tell the Truth, you have to reveal your vulnerable self, your unpopular ideas and your embarrassing mistakes and your shameful desires. Tell me you mowed your college lover’s initials into your lawn last weekend without thinking about it, tell me you took one bite out of 27 different peaches to see which one was good enough for your tiny daughter. I’ll believe you.

 

Tell me you mowed the lawn last Saturday and it took you 43 minutes, tell me you purchased 9 peaches at the grocery store and gave one to your little girl. I’ll also believe you. But I won’t know you. Because you’re not telling me the truth.