Posts Tagged ‘home and family’
Cindy on August 1st, 2010
Every spirit builds itself a house, and beyond its house a world, and beyond its world a heaven.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Riding my bike on a beautiful day last week, I noticed very few kids playing outside. Made me a little sad. The following piece from my memoir, Writing Home, chronicles a late-summer memory of my son’s childhood. First published in the Christian Science Monitor, it still gives me that “end of the summer” feeling every time I reread it . . .
Summer Home
It began in June with a large cardboard box, just roomy enough to house my wiry eight-year-old son, Nate, and a scrap of old tweed carpeting.
“The fort,” as Nate dubbed it, was expanded throughout the summer to include several new rooms, each designed from salvaged appliance boxes of various shapes and sizes. By the time it was finished, the fort curled like a corrugated snake across the entire lawn. Other kids in our neighborhood added their own flourishes — round windows, paper awnings and banners, plastic pipes and tubes. (Whether these served functional or aesthetic purposes, only the children knew.)
By the end of July, Nate’s cardboard Xanadu had become something of a local landmark. It was such hot property, in fact, that you had to write your name on the official SIGN-UP SHEET to be admitted inside, a bit like the exclusive restaurants lining Main Street downtown. Since we live on a corner lot in a carefully maintained suburb, I worried that our neighbors would object to the ever-growing mountain of boxes in our yard. If you had no imagination and didn’t know you were looking at a playhouse, you might have guessed we were careless about storing our trash.
But no one complained. Other parents who had watched the fort’s progress were amazed to see that something as simple and economical as a stack of empty appliance boxes could keep so many children amused for so long. One afternoon, a local building contractor even stopped his truck to admire the fort’s design.
“Hey there, that’s quite a place!” he called out to Nate and his pals. “Are you renting space in your cardboard condo?” But the kids insisted they weren’t looking for more tenants.
“Every spirit builds itself a house, and beyond its house a world, and beyond its world a heaven,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. We’re born with the desire to create a home, to build our own retreat. And while home can mean something different to everyone, the need for a sense of place is universally human. To a small boy, a discarded carton contains unlimited potential for a playhouse or a fortress of his own.
But to the homeless man who camps near the railroad tracks at the edge of our town, a cardboard box might be his only refuge.
Nate and I first spotted the shelter a few weeks after his fort was built. We were heading toward our favorite fast-food restaurant downtown, taking our time as we walked along a gravel service road flanking the railroad tracks. We noticed a crude assemblage of large boxes almost hidden behind a tangle of wild thistle and Queen Anne’s lace. Torn blankets and soiled clothing were strung on branches nearby; long sheets of blue plastic encircled the base of the boxes like small rivers. We agreed that the makeshift shelter looked remarkably like his cardboard fort back home.
“What’s all the plastic for, and why does the man live there instead of a real house?” he asked as we walked past the encampment. I explained that the homeless man probably used the plastic to keep the boxes dry when it rained. But I didn’t know how to explain the complexities of being homeless to a suburban second-grader who is tucked securely into bed on a full stomach every night.
Following a heat wave later that week, a powerful evening storm rolled in. It brewed so quickly that my husband and I didn’t have time to pull Nate’s fort into the garage. By morning it was scattered across the lawn. Even “the turret,” a sturdy refrigerator carton in its previous life, had toppled like an uprooted tree among the soggy ruins.
At first I was secretly relieved that we could finally dismantle all the boxes that had taken over our yard. But Nate was fighting tears as he tried to salvage parts of his handiwork, and I couldn’t help but feel his loss. Together we folded the sheets of rain-soaked cardboard and piled them near the trash in our garage.
Since then, school has started again. But we haven’t discarded a cardboard box without seriously considering its possibilities. And we often wonder about the homeless man who had set up camp near the railroad tracks. The last time we walked there, we noticed that his shelter, like Nate’s fort, had collapsed in the hard summer rain. – Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on April 1st, 2010
“If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have to at least consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.” — Douglas Adams
Americans do strange things to celebrate religious holidays. Consider Easter. There’s nothing particularly pious about hiding neon pink and blue plastic eggs in the back yard. And it’s not exactly Christian to give someone a milk-chocolate rabbit, especially if the recipient is on the South Beach diet.
But even more bewildering was the pair of live ducklings my uncle gave me for Easter when I was a child. I don’t recall the looks on my parents’ faces when my uncle handed me the cardboard box containing two fuzzy ducklings peeping at the tops of their tiny lungs. But I remember being told that I couldn’t keep them both.
A neighborhood playmate agreed to adopt one, but after a couple of weeks the poor thing was sent to her grandmother’s farm up north, where it became a holiday dinner entree the following year. For lack of a better idea, my parents bought a small swimming pool and reluctantly allowed me keep my duckling in our back yard.
Like most suburbanites, my mom and dad were totally clueless about livestock, so our new pet initially stirred up some gender confusion. As the weeks passed, the duck I had named Oliver matured and sprouted a mass of dazzling white feathers.
Raised on a farm in Scotland, my grandfather knew immediately that Oliver was really an Olivia.
“A male duck has a curl at the end of his tail,” Grandpa insisted. “The females have a plain tail like Oliver’s.” The tail story seemed far-fetched, at first, but it wasn’t long before Grandpa had indisputable evidence. One morning, Oliver left a large egg in the small shed where she slept. And from then on, we found a fresh egg in her bedding every day.
It took the neighbors a while to get used to having a duck in the ‘hood. Some were startled when they first heard Oliver’s daily wake-up quack at 7:00 a.m. Mrs. Ritchie, who lived behind us, says she still remembers watching the duck waddle next to me whenever I visited playmates around the block.
If her morning wake-up quack didn’t produce the desired result, Oliver would nibble at the screen on my bedroom window. When I appeared outside, she would bow and stretch her long neck in greeting, which always thrilled me. Later in the day, Oliver knew it was feeding time when she heard the sound of a spoon clanging on the side of a dish. Her dinner consisted mostly of dried corn from a nearby feed store, or a plate of finely chopped, hard-boiled eggs. For dessert she enjoyed the pansies in my mother’s garden.
Oliver wasn’t the easiest pet to care for, and today I wouldn’t recommend keeping a duck for a pet in the suburbs. Back-yard captivity isn’t fair to any creature that ordinarily thrives in a rural setting. (If you’re still not convinced, a phone call to our local Code Enforcement department confirmed that there’s an ordinance against keeping live ducks and chickens on residential property.)
So what happened to Oliver? At the end of her second summer, we returned from a family vacation to discover she had died in our back yard. The neighbor who was caring for her could only guess that she’d been attacked by a predatory animal.
Second only to the passing of my beloved Grandma Ruby, Oliver’s violent death was one of my first encounters with loss. I grieved for weeks. Her stay with us was brief but eventful, and it sparked my near-religious devotion to birds and animals. Years later, I can’t think of Easter without remembering her. – Cindy La Ferle
– This post appears in slightly different form in Writing Home. It was first published on Easter Sunday in The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak; April 2004). —
P.S. My son is home for the Easter holiday, so I’ll be offline, spending time with my family. Happy Easter to all of you!
Cindy on January 1st, 2010
And now, let us welcome the New Year/ Full of things that have never been.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
It’s perfect — how the month of January is named for Janus, the Roman god of gates and entrances, beginnings and endings. With his two heads facing opposite directions, Janus inspires us to look backward and forward as we step over the threshold and begin again.
Last year was a year of change and transition for me and my small family.
My only child, who moved to Chicago after graduating from college in 2008, purchased his first condo in the summer. On moving day, his dad helped him haul boxes up and down the elevator of his new residence while I organized his kitchen. Unpacking my son’s dinnerware and utensils, I recalled other “firsts” in his young life. First day of kindergarten. First formal dance with his girlfriend. First day of driver’s ed. First day of college at Notre Dame. How quickly those days flew off the pages of our family calendar.
Meanwhile — almost overnight — my widowed mother lost her old spark. Independent for years, she began forgetting things. Important things. She forgot that certain people in her life had died. She forgot phone conversations we’d had the day before. When tested by the neurologist, she couldn’t recall the name of the county we live in, or what day of the week it was. Not surprisingly, in November she was diagnosed with early stage dementia — a diagnosis that immediately reordered my priorities and changed the shape of my days.
Looking forward; looking back. My son moves ahead with his new life in Chicago while my elderly mother’s world grows smaller and smaller. Clearly, the seasons of family living are unfolding exactly as they should. And despite the inevitable heartache, I find myself feeling deeply grateful for every step, stumble, or leap that brought me to this path, this life of mine.
As a freelance writer with a supportive husband, I’m lucky to have the flexibility to help my mother when she needs me. Impromptu trips with Mom to the doctor’s office or the emergency room aren’t fun — but they’re not as much of a challenge now as they would have been when I had office jobs.
Still, there’s no denying that it’s been a very tough year for every writer and journalist I know. If there’s a silver lining in any of it, the sad state of journalism here in Detroit forced many of us to try markets we’d neglected or overlooked when we were employed full-time or working other assignments. Out of necessity in 2009, I developed new writing workshops. I worked harder at promoting Writing Home. I outlined a viable idea for a new book project. Several of my personal essays were published in national anthologies and magazines. Best of all, a piece I wrote about my Zen garden was accepted for the March/April 2010 issue of Victoria — a lifestyle magazine I’ve read and admired for years. Regardless, freelance writing is a crazy business, so I’m forever grateful to my local writer pals and support groups for keeping me (somewhat) sane last year.
Typing these notes, I’m also overcome with gratitude for all of you who read my reflections here. Your comments and support always cheer me. And I apologize for not visiting (and commenting on) your blogs and Facebook walls as often as I wish I could. Too often lately, real life has made it impossible to spend as much time on my computer.
I’ll be offline for most of next week too. It’s time to pull down the Christmas decorations and begin the ritual of clearing out things I no longer need — holiday treats and leftovers; old clothes and grudges; bad attitudes. Getting started this morning, I opened our front and back doors to let the old year out and welcome the new one inside. It’s an old Celtic custom that’s still praticed in parts of Ireland and Scotland, and it makes perfect sense to me. The first cold blast of January wakes me up and hurries me back to work.
So there you have it. Doors opening and closing. Endings and beginnings. I wish you all a peaceful, healthy start for your own new year. — Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on December 29th, 2009
There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” — Zora Neale Hurston
For several years I’ve kept a small garden statue of a woman by our side entrance. I named her Hestia after the ancient goddess of home and family. In Greek mythology, Hestia’s role was to keep the flame of the hearth burning. This week she’s dressed in snow — and looking a little overwhelmed by the onset of winter and the challenges ahead. I can relate.
It’s been a mixed bag of a holiday in our household. My husband and I have been enjoying a week-long visit with our son, who flew in from Chicago for Christmas last week. We’ve shared some cozy meals at home together — I love to cook with my family — and we’ve made time to visit extended family, old friends, and favorite haunts around town.
Meanwhile, real life also paid us a yuletide visit. On Christmas Eve, my mother (who was just diagnosed with early-stage dementia last month) came down with another serious infection. I spent most of Christmas Eve morning at the doctor’s office with her, and the rest of the holiday bringing meals to her.
At times it felt awkward to celebrate with the rest of the family while my mother stayed in bed in her condo, watching television. And so, with regrets, I canceled out of several parties and gatherings, all the while feeling guilty for lacking the social energy and enthusiasm required of the holiday season. I know I disappointed more than a few people for not showing up in one way or another.
My mother’s doctor asked me to come in with my mother for a consultation this afternoon. As the doctor put it, we need to determine the next step for Mom’s ongoing care. I’m guessing, from the doctor’s tone on the phone, that 2010 will be a year of changes. But there’s hope too. Mom agreed, after several arguments, to take a new medication prescribed for her dementia. She adores her condo — keeping house is the thing that gives her life meaning, shape, and routine. So I’m hoping she’ll be able to stay in her own place as long as possible.
At this point in the holiday season, I’d usually be drawing up a lengthy list of New Year’s resolutions. In the past, most of those resolutions would have included ambitious career goals and pie-in-the-sky dreams of self-improvement. This year, I’m asking only two things of myself: To sustain the energy I’ll need to keep the fire burning — and to find the patience to ride out the changes ahead. — Cindy La Ferle
– “Hestia” garden statue photo by Cindy La Ferle –
Cindy on December 15th, 2009
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more? — Dr. Seuss
A few years ago, one of my editors challenged me to write an essay for the front page of the Christmas Eve edition. He said he wanted a piece as moving and memorable as Francis Church’s famous New York Sun editorial, “Is There A Santa Claus?”
Talk about pressure. I was going through a rough time and had nothing original or inspiring to say about Christmas. But I forged on as best I could. Today I can’t recall much of what I wrote for that assignment, and I’m guessing nobody else does either.
Christmas remains a forced and difficult season for me. Like the chains wrapped around Jacob Marley’s ghostly ankles, the secular pressures of the holiday are sometimes more than I can bear. I resent the marketeers who obligate me to buy gifts I wouldn’t otherwise consider. I resent the magazine editors who suggest that my yuletide performance — decorating, cooking, entertaining, baking — is never quite enough. And I dread the hot waves of guilt that wash over me when I can’t muster expressions of merriment or religiosity on cue.
But I wasn’t always such a Grinch.
Auld Lang Syne
As a kid, I bought into the Santa mythology, and for a short time I believed in magic. In those days, the lyrics to Christmas carols seemed fresh and stirring — partly because my parents never played them until after Thanksgiving. I was even more intrigued by the stories of elves and trolls. I was sure they assisted Santa on his midnight mission throughout the world. I’d stay awake all night on Christmas Eve, listening for them.
Even then, I knew the real wizards behind the Christmas magic were my paternal grandparents and a half-dozen eccentric great-aunts and uncles. Charles Dickens couldn’t top those folks when it came to holiday spirit. All were immigrants from Scotland’s Orkney Islands, and during the 1950s and ’60s, their generous Detroit neighborhood was a rich melting pot representing several nationalities and religious denominations.
My grandparents threw an annual Christmas Eve open house, inviting every relative, neighbor, and friend in the vicinity. The Goodmans, who lived across the street and celebrated Chanukah, always stopped by too. The whole house would expand with the aroma of my grandmother’s cooking and the clamor of jovial visitors — so much so that the windows of their modest brick-and-stone Colonial steamed up and I could print my name with a finger in the watery panes. At some point in the evening, my Aunt Annie, a chain smoker who outlived the other aunts and uncles, performed a Highland sword dance (using the fireplace tools) in the middle of the living room. Later, someone would pound out a chorus of “Auld Lang Syne” on the piano.
Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house wasn’t about the presents or decorations. These were practical Scots who gifted each other with new underwear and wasted little money on trimmings. Their Christmas was all about community.
Stuffed with shortbread and happiness — and loaded down with boxes of new pj’s and underwear — I’d always return home late with my parents. And if our timing was just right, my dad and I watched the original A Christmas Carol on TV at midnight in black and white.
Holiday grief and loss
My Scottish grandparents — and crazy Aunt Annie — died many years ago. Since then, I married and had my own family, but as hard as I tried, I could never recreate the old-country Christmas festivities at my grandparents’ home.
And after my father’s fatal heart attack in 1992, the whole Christmas season felt like an emotional challenge. I couldn’t predict when a bittersweet line from a favorite carol, or another errant ghost of Christmas past, would bring tears. My family and I continued to celebrate our holidays with my dad’s only brother and my cousins. But when my uncle lost his battle with pancreatic cancer over two years ago, we faced yet another empty chair at our holiday table.
Thankfully, I’ve arrived at a quiet harbor of acceptance. But I still hold a special place in my heart for every soul who’s suffering a recent loss at holiday time. For the grieving or the newly divorced, those festive commercials highlighting family togetherness can seem downright cruel. Not to mention all the ads that suggest everyone in town is throwing a party and you’re not invited.
Regardless, like most women of my vintage, I’ve always understood that one of my duties as a wife and mother was to make the holiday bright for my own family. In retrospect, I think I did a fairly good job of it, and, yes, there were many sparks of genuine Christmas spirit when my son was small. The video my husband recorded of our toddler and me making sugar cookies reminds me that holiday traditions needn’t be over-the-top; that the truly sacred moments are the ordinary moments when we are, to borrow from C.S. Lewis, “surprised by joy.”
And those are the moments I’ll hope to recall in years to come.
Watching my widowed mother this year, I wonder if this will be the last Christmas she’ll remember. Last month she was officially diagnosed with early stages of dementia, and already her memories are jumbled. She’s lucid most of the time — yet she knows something is terribly wrong. She’s losing her hearing and is often depressed or confused. And I know she still misses my dad. It is my job to see that she is cared for and loved, and that she is made as comfortable as possible as we navigate another Christmas.
Redefining tradition
My husband comes from a large family of good people, and for years he’s been lucky enough to rehash the same Christmas traditions and memories with most of them, although his own father was moved to a nursing home this summer.
Aside from the fact that my mother-in-law bakes the best pies in the Midwest, it should go without saying that we need to spend some holiday time on that side of the family tree. My son needs the unconditional love of grandparents and extended family — just as I did years ago. My in-laws, bless them all, also invite my mother to their holiday celebrations. Their tables are always expanding to include new partners, nieces, nephews, stepchildren, and grandkids, and I know that my mom and I are always counted as family in their crowd.
And yet. Whenever I’m toasting Christmas with my in-laws, I can’t quite shake the sense that I’m an orphan looking through a window at someone else’s feast; or an obligatory guest at a cocktail party. These people have holiday memories and histories of their own, and I enjoy hearing them. But their nostalgia is not my nostalgia.
My dear husband reminds me that we do honor our own traditions here at our house — and that we have the power to turn off the Christmas Machine.
A few years ago, we started keeping a (mostly) gift-less Christmas, donating money to our favorite charities in honor of loved ones. And now that our son is grown and living out of state, the highlight of our holiday is his return visit. When he’s back in Detroit, his old friends inevitably wind up at our house, so we also get the chance to reconnect with the kids from the neighborhood.
At some point during the holiday rush, we’ll uncork a bottle of wine or two by the fire with other cherished friends who’ve weathered life’s trials and turning points — not just the holidays — with us. That’s when I’ll remember, as my Scottish grandparents taught me, that a real clan includes dear friends and neighbors, not just the people we’re related to. I’ll take a deep breath and it will hit me that everything is just as it should be, even the imperfect and the undone. Or, as Garrison Keillor once said, “A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.” – Cindy La Ferle
–The Grinch in top photo is a gift from my friend Shirley, who adores Christmas just the same. –
Riding my bike on a beautiful day last week, I noticed very few kids playing outside. Made me a little sad. The following piece from my memoir, Writing Home, chronicles a late-summer memory of my son’s childhood. First published in the Christian Science Monitor, it still gives me that “end of the summer” feeling every time I reread it . . .
