Jam

When I was in elementary school, we walked home for lunch every day. Usually my dad was there to make sure we got fed and back out the door in time for the afternoon session. We had a lot of time for lunch: even walking about six blocks each way, I don’t remember being rushed. In fact, some days, if we were out of bread, there was time for my dad to send us to the bakery around the corner for a fresh loaf. Lunch was always sandwiches, so we had to have bread.

The rules on sandwiches in our household were like a chapter of Leviticus (the King James Version): a long list of rules regarding what was and wasn’t acceptable. Thou shalt always butter both slices of bread; thou shalt always cover the bread with a second slice of bread (open faced sandwiches are an abomination); never shall meat and cheese lie together in the same sandwich, neither mayo and mustard: it shall not be eaten.

These rules may have come from my parents’ impoverished childhoods and from not wanting to squander too much on one sandwich, or they may have just preferred boring sandwiches and saw no need for more than one flavor. (I never really did understand the butter thing.) Regardless, we kids were all very excited when we were invited to eat lunch at our friends’ houses where we were permitted to eat peanut butter AND JAM together on the same sandwich. We were living large.

After Bill and I got married, he would make amazing sandwiches by piling on everything we had: meat (sometimes more than one kind!), cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, mayo, mustard, onion, alfalfa sprouts. I felt so guilty enjoying it; it really did feel like I was sinning.

As a kid, one thing that was always on our lunch table was my mother’s homemade jam, which was remarkable all on its own. My mom’s jam was the best, jam so amazing that it has made all other jam unpalatable. There might be high-end jams out there that compare, but mostly other jams just make me sad, and I’ve pretty much given up on them.

My mother made strawberry freezer jam: batches and batches of beautiful red jam, soft-set and stored in small jars with a diamond pattern in the glass. When we’d take a new jar out of the freezer and lift the tin lid, crystals of ice shimmered on the surface. We’d dig in and spread it on the bread, and really, peanut butter would not have enhanced it in any way. Some mornings my dad would get up early and put some frozen bread dough in the oven to bake; then breakfast would be steaming fresh bread dripping with chilled strawberry jam. The combination of sweet and savory, hot and cold, my mother’s efforts and my father’s…it was heaven on earth.

My mom made peach jam in a hot water bath, a much more elaborate process that sealed the jars so the beautiful rosy jam could be stored in the basement. It, too, was delicious beyond compare: a taste like sweet sunshine with a bit of tart. The shelf would be full at summer’s end, and by spring we were carefully parsing out what was left in order to make it last until there was new jam.

This summer, my desire for my mother’s jam finally overwhelmed me to the point that I decided to make my own. I started with strawberry. We bought some beautiful fruit at the farmers’ market and, following the directions, I cut it up, added the SureGel, and poured it into plastic containers, since I don’t have a collection of pretty glass jars. And…it was just okay. Better than store-bought, but not nearly as good as mom’s. It’s hard to know if my work was really inferior (I know I over-mashed the fruit) or if nostalgia had raised mom’s jam to an unattainable level.

When peaches started to come in, I decided to use my experience to try to improve my average. I went with the freezer jam recipe again, since I don’t have the necessary equipment for the water bath processing. I chopped and measured and followed the directions. Instead of being better than the strawberry, the peach jam was a disaster, never setting up but remaining stubbornly liquid. I was disappointed, but we bought some vanilla ice cream and used the “jam” to make fabulous milk shakes (which were kind of healthy, since they had fruit in them).

Some days I miss my mom deeply. But sometimes I wonder if I miss the idea of my mom. She’d had a hard life and struggled with many things, and the woman I knew as a teenager was still trying to work things out—something that I appreciate now far more than I did back then. There’s no telling who my mom might have become if she had lived beyond the age of 51. Would she have been critical and negative, shaking her head over my failed jam, or wise and supportive, laughing at our ingenuity in using it for milkshakes? Would she have been a doting grandma, showing up with hugs and toys and taking the kids to the movies, or would she have keep her distance? Would she have ever found a way to release her brilliance and her creativity, so evident but so deeply suppressed, or would she have insisted on eating Leviticus sandwiches forever? Could she ever have accepted how loved and admired she was and found peace? Could have gone either way, and most likely some combination.

Memory is a tricky thing. Sometimes it frustrates me that I forget things, but really being able to forget, or at least for memory to fade, is God’s gift, especially for those not-so-pleasant (even horrific) memories we all carry. Nostalgia encourages me to remember my mother’s strength and beauty, and I’m content with that. But I’m not content with my inability to replicate her jam. And so next year I will try again. I’m pretty certain that’s what mom would have done.

Royal Pains

Most Tuesday mornings I volunteer at Meijer Garden (http://www.meijergardens.org/), a really lovely hub where horticulture, fine arts, and education come together to play. It’s one of West Michigan’s best features, and I’m proud to be a (very small) part of the work that’s done there.

My job is as a bus buddy. Bus buddies meet the groups of school children who come to visit and/or participate in one of our many educational programs. Bus buddies hop on the buses as they pull in, remind the kids to use walking feet and inside voices and to NEVER EVER EVER climb on the statues, and then get the kids off the buses and to their destinations in an orderly fashion.

On the good days, it’s a simple job. On the good days, the teachers are organized and have remembered name tags and paperwork and payment and have organized all the lunches into boxes or baskets, and the chaperones listen to directions and pay attention to the kids instead of spending all of their time looking at their phones. On the good days, the weather is beautiful and the buses are well spaced and arrive as scheduled.

Of course, there are no perfect days. As bus buddies, we are used to all the things that don’t go as well as we would like them to, and we work around them. It’s our job. I’ll be the first to admit that I take the job a little too seriously and that I can get frustrated with some of the bumps, but I also try very hard not to let my irritation show with the kids, parents, and teachers. I want Meijer Garden to be a happy place for everyone.

Bus buddies generally work in teams of three, but for some reason Tuesdays are hard to fill, so Tuesdays have been handled by a two-person team. Lately I’ve worked with Susan, who might be my all-time favorite coworker in this job. We talk things over and know the plan, but we both know what to do and when to do it and have no problem scrapping the plan if necessary.

Some days, two bus buddies are not enough, even though we are really good. Fortunately, Rita is a trained bus buddy who works the information desk on Tuesdays, and she’s generally available to come out and help us over the hump.

A few months ago my dad mentioned that the king and queen of the Netherlands would be visiting West Michigan, and that they would make a stop at Meijer Garden. He thought about getting an invite or a ticket for himself but thought them a bit pricey. He wondered if, as a volunteer, I would be invited or might get a glimpse. I chuckled at the thought of me, a lowly bus buddy, amid the glitterati of West Michigan celebs and millionaires. This ain’t communion; it’s PR and politics. I knew I wouldn’t be invited, and I didn’t really give it a second thought.

One Tuesday a team of security people were onsite in preparation for the visit, reminding me that it must be coming up. That’s when I found out what lots of people already knew: the royals would be there the next Tuesday.

I knew that would mean tight security and changes in some of our procedures, but I wasn’t too worried. We were getting toward the end of the school year, so we had fewer and fewer groups, and I figured any groups would be scheduled to avoid a collision with the king and queen.

Then I got the schedule for school groups. Four large groups were scheduled to arrive all at EXACTLY the same time. We were expecting about 600 kids and chaperones at 9:45 and we wouldn’t be able to use about half of our usual drop-off space, couldn’t use our usual gathering spaces, had to bring the kids in through different doors, had to relocate all their lunches—the list of hoops was long.

I was not amused. In fact, I would have to say I was seriously pissed off. For the first time at the garden, I felt abused as a volunteer. I vented to anyone who would sit still: Bill (multiple times), my kids, my boss, my pastor. Such a schedule would have been chaos on a good day; what would it be like when we had to dance around the royals?

But the venting must have done some good, because that Tuesday morning I woke up a new woman. All my grumpiness had disappeared and I embraced my inner fangirl. I put on my freshly washed uniform shirt with pride, and although I took no more pains with my hair than usual (pony tail), I did put on a little lipstick and my orange jacket, since you never know when you might get picked up on some cameraman’s B roll. I reviewed the words of the Dutch national anthem and did just a little bit of research into the king and queen. I was ready for whatever came.

We were blessed with perfect weather. I got there early, and Jess, the staff person in charge of school groups, was already setting up. Then Rita and Susan showed up, and another bus buddy Rita had impressed into service. A few additional paid staff were on hand as well, and a bored docent who wanted to be part of the action wandered out, looking for something to do. I attempted to teach them a little Dutch while we prepared, demonstrating the proper amount of spit needed for each word.  

Then the buses began to arrive—10 total—and we used every single person we had. I can’t say it wasn’t chaotic, because it always is when you’re dealing with first graders (plus teachers, chaperones, and four times the normal number of greeters), but we managed to work around the media and the Secret Service and the Dutch ambassador and get everyone (and their lunches) where they needed to go.

After we got everything put away and my work was done, I loitered a bit, watching the wealthy, the politicians, and local celebrities arrive. I debated waiting until the royals arrived so I might catch a glimpse. I probably should have stayed…just to say I did. But decided to make my way out of there while I still could. Give the rest of the rubberneckers a chance.

It had been a great day, and a glimpse of royalty would not have changed or even enhanced that. Sometimes the preparation is more fun than the party. And some days I’m smart enough to realize it. 

The Plumber

A few years ago I heard a story of recent immigrants to the United States who dumbfounded at the sight of spoiled food.  In the impoverished country of their birth, they had never seen such a thing happen. Only when they moved to the United States did they learn it was possible for food to go bad.  

I think of this every time I notice something fuzzy on a leftover or when my nose tells me there is something rotten in the potato bin. Admittedly, part of it is that I’m a cheapskate and I hate to waste money. But I do genuinely want to honor the earth and the food it provides, and I also know that someone, somewhere, would be grateful for the scraps from my table.

So when I remembered we had a few chicken breasts in the fridge, I was optimistic, even though I was pretty sure they were past their prime. They did not pass the smell test, but after I rinsed them they seemed like they might be okay. I put them in the crock pot on low for a few hours, hoping that whatever nasty thing was growing on them could be cooked out. Even as they were cooking they didn’t smell right, so I was increasingly leaning toward tossing them.

Not quite ready to give up, I took a bite and spit it out immediately. Nope. Not gonna do it.

I turned on the disposal and flushed the chicken down. Then, unexpectedly, I could hear the sink start to fill, and then bits of chicken started coming back up. I turned off the disposal; the water had definitely stopped draining. Shoot.

I grabbed the plunger and went at it. The water stayed put, milky from the bits of chicken floating about. Our home is blessed with pipes with couplings that can be easily removed to check for blockage. I put a pan underneath the sink and began to disassemble, but the force of the water was greater than anticipated, and the warm chicken soup went everywhere inside the cabinet, and a great deal of it on me as well.

The trap was clear. I pulled off a few more pieces; everything checked out. I took a knife and poked at the piece of pipe that disappeared into the wall: nothing. I reassembled the pipes and ran more water. The sink filled again.

At least three more times I disassembled, cleaned out what I could, and put the thing back together, with the same results. When Bill came home after a long, hard day, he was greeted with a mess in the kitchen and a wife who was more than a little upset. Bill thinks like an engineer and often can fix things that I can’t, but he, too, was unable to find the blockage.

I called the plumber early the next day. When I have to call in a professional, I always hope that things are not solved so easily that I feel stupid for calling, but not so complicated that the bill goes into double digits. My hopes were unfulfilled. The plumber was with us all day. ALL DAY. He used tools. He checked schematics. He drilled holes. He seemed almost as frustrated as I was—but of course, he was getting paid for his frustration.

Finally, he found the problem: about six feet of pipe clogged with all manner of table scraps, the residue of 12 years of our life, the remnants of countless meals slowly accumulating in a plastic tube between the floor joists and the ceiling tiles. He cut the pipe and the goo came gushing out; it could have been much worse, but the clog was in the pipe above the bathroom. The shower and the plumber were covered with it, and the smell knocked me back…a cross between puke, swamp, and landfill. Nasty.

The plumber felt bad about the mess; I assured him I was more than willing to clean it up if it meant I could have my kitchen back. He replaced the pipe, filled the holes, and tested everything to make sure were back in business. It was well past the dinner hour before Steve the plumber pulled out, a fat check in his wallet. And even then he said, with a wink, that the next time I called, he’d let me go through to voice mail.

It was a long, expensive day, and more than once I wish I had just tossed the chicken when I first suspected it was bad. But the truth is, this was not about the chicken, and it was not my fault. There, I’ve said it. From time to time I have to remind myself that sometimes the bad stuff rains down unexpectedly, splattering everywhere. If you’re lucky, the bad stuff can be fixed; if you’re luckier, all it costs you is money. And if you’re really lucky, you can absorb the cost without it cutting too deeply.

At the end of the day—even this day—I am reminded of all the things for which I am grateful: for running water, for help that comes when I dial a number, for our beautiful home that gives us space to commune. Even the muck is a reminder of all the good gifts we have been given. On this day—every day—we are blessed beyond measure.

Dishes

I’ve never been the woman that ropes off her living room unless company is coming over, and I don’t really have things that I save for special occasions, but I do have a number of lovely things that aren’t particularly practical for everyday use. Some were wedding gifts, others were inherited from family members, and others I’ve picked up myself over the years. Mostly they live in the china hutch, but when I host a gathering, I love pulling them out and showing them off.

My oldest niece is getting married in a few months, and her sister Sarah and I hosted a bridal shower for her. I had great fun trolling Pinterest for décor and menu ideas, and I enjoyed cooking and decorating in preparation. Cleaning…well, less fun, but important. My house is never as clean as I’d like, but I’ve accepted that, and I know that being a good hostess is not as much about a spotless home as it is about an open door.

The morning of the bridal shower, I cover the table with an embroidered tablecloth that had belonged to my stepmother; in fact, I think it had originally belonged to her mother-in-law. I spread a second embroidered tablecloth—a treasure purchased for $2 at an estate sale—over the kitchen island where I will set up the dessert station. I often pick up handwork at second-hand sales, because I want to honor and respect the work of the women who created it. The textile arts, in my opinion, tend to be undervalued.

Once the backdrop is in place, I retrieve tiny white china cups and saucers—a wedding gift from a childhood neighbor—from the bottom of the hutch. My neighbor was an avid garage sale shopper, and I am sure that these cups were not new when she gave them to me, which, frankly, I think is awesome. Recycling rocks!

I take out another wedding gift: an enormous glass bowl, a present from the kids in the 9^th-grade Sunday school we taught before we wed. I love this bowl and use it often. When I do, I always remember those sassy, introspective, amazing kids. We lost touch with them, but I know a few things: two of the girls were pregnant before they graduated high school (*sigh*), one of the boys was killed in a car accident when he was 26, and the father of one of the girls died just a few months ago. Much has happened since we knew them, but the beauty of the glass bowl remains.

To serve the chocolate mousse, I pull out my own Crate-and-Barrel dessert dishes, plus a few antique dessert dishes of unknown origin and a few pieces of my mother’s stemware. I’m sure that at one time I would have found the mish-mash of dishes tacky, but now I love it. Matchy-matchy is so 20^th-century.

There are not enough forks in my every-day silver, so I pull out the forks that were my family’s “good” silverware when I was a kid. I’ll also need three stainless serving plates to hold the quiches and my grandmother’s floral bon-bon dish for the butter. We plate and arrange everything: the tables look beautiful.

Our guests arrive—a mix of women new to me and people I’ve known for decades. The room is full of laughter and happiness, getting to know each other and celebrating Beka and the new family that is being formed with her marriage. 

At this shower, also I see and hear and feel the presence of women long gone, women I have loved and women I have not met. I see their artistry in the beautiful tablecloths that have served, and continue to serve, as a backdrop to lovingly created meals. I hear the echoes of their conversations as we sip from the same porcelain coffee cups. I see the reflection of their lives in the metals and the crystal. 

These days, when most women work for their own fulfillment as well as for financial reasons, when men cook and clean and tend to children, these gatherings might seem a throwback to another time: a hen party, a relic from the days when a well-stocked kitchen was the epitome of what every woman wanted. But I see it more as a rite of passage: women supporting women, helping to launch a young bride’s new life, offering our advice and our blessings to the bride-to-be as she enters an exciting new chapter.

When women gather, there is power. Sometimes this power changes the world through advocacy, education, research, or new ideas. And sometimes it changes the world in quieter ways, empowering just one woman and surrounding her with love as she moves confidently into her future. Godspeed, Beka, and know that you’re supported by those who walked this path before you. 

Reading

When I talk to parents who, like us, have large gaps in the ages of their children, they will often say that they are much better parents later in life. They have learned to let “little things” slide and they focus more on enjoying their kids than correcting them.

I can honestly say that I don’t feel that I have changed that much. I am just as bad at parenting as I have always been. I still get grumpy over lost items and spilled drinks, and I still get mad when I have to repeat simple instructions 20 times. We don’t indulge the kids’ every request or sign them up for everything they want to do; we ask them to make choices. When they pair green sweatpants with a red shirt or commit some other fashion faux pas, I will send my kids upstairs to change, although I have always been fairly relaxed about hair, allowing them to choose their own styles and colors (and trying really, really hard not making snide comments). But I still insist the kids eat their veggies, do their chores, and go to bed at a decent time.

I do notice, however, that I don’t worry quite as much about the younger kids’ academics. I help when I can, nag when I must, but I don’t feel the need to push them to be the top of their class. One thing I have learned is that motivation must come from within, and pushing too hard only leads to frustration for me and passive aggressive behavior in them.

I used to try so hard to get the older kids work up to their potential. All of them, smart and talented but not particularly driven, were happy to get by with the least amount of work, so from time to time we would work on an incentive program. When Beanie Babies were popular, I promised my oldest son, Phillip, a new stuffed animal with each perfect score on a spelling test, and for months his tests were flawless. When I told him that I thought he should get two perfect tests in order to get a toy, he decided that was too much work, and he never studied for a spelling test again.

I do believe in education, and I do want my kids to give things their best effort. I want them to understand math and be scientifically literate. I want them to LOVE reading and to be able to put together clear sentences in written form.  But with spellcheck available everywhere, it hardly seems important to be a perfect speller. By all means, I want the kids to learn the difference between there, their, and they’re, but most of the other stuff—eh, not so important.

More than brilliance in the classroom, my wish for my kids is that they learn to be kindhearted and empathetic without being used and abused, that they can understand the give-and-take required of any good relationship. I want them to learn to be good friends, and this is far more difficult to teach this than any academic subject.

Over the years each of my kids has had good friends and not-so-good friends. I know that my kids didn’t, and still don’t, tell me about every time they were bullied or bruised. I also know that, although they are basically lovely people, my kids have been guilty of acts of unkindness—some of it stunningly cruel. It’s what kids do: speak without thinking, act without considering someone else’s feelings. Sometimes it has cost them big, but other times they have been able to make amends. At the very least they have learned from the experience.

Back in the days when I was pressuring Phillip about I before E and all other things academic, he hung out with a kid named Greg. They were friends through high school, but they didn’t see each other much after that, even though they made some attempts to keep in touch. It wasn’t a falling out, just a falling away, as happens when paths diverge.

Enough of their friendship remained that Phillip went to the visitation hours when, at age 21, Greg took his own life. Even looking back at their time together, Phillip did not suspect that Greg would suicide. I don’t know if Greg changed after high school or if Phillip just didn’t see it. I certainly don’t blame Phillip for missing it. Greg had a loving family and several close friends; I don’t know if any of them saw it, either. But I wish someone had, and had found a way to stop it.

I want my kids to read great literature, to understand math, and to know important events from history, but more than that I want them to be able to read people, to understand relationships, and to know themselves. Not that the two are mutually exclusive; it’s certainly possible to be self-aware and a good friend and also to be intellectually well-rounded. But if I have to choose, I want to raise kids who are good friends, who have healthy relationships, and who make a positive difference in the lives of others.

I’ll go to parent/teacher conferences this week, and if history is any indication, I expect that the teachers will tell me that my kids are doing okay academically: strengths and weaknesses, but mostly middle of the pack. And then they’ll tell me that my kids are helpful and kind, sweet and funny, growing up to be good people. After the conferences I’ll attempt—as I always do—to offer more help (and nag a little more) with schoolwork. But in my heart I’ll know that the important foundation is already secure.