The Madonna's Gifts

“At every tick of the clock, in every inhabited part of the world, and unimaginable richness and variety of “history” falls off the world into total oblivion.”
C. S. Lewis

The snow began quickly falling like sifted flour over the neighborhood just a minutes before 8p.m. a week or two ago and we trundled down from the warmth of the attic to let the dog out for a trot. As I opened the door I was struck by the fact that someone with small feet had come up our driveway to a point just past the back door, turned around and retraced their steps back down the drive and to the left up Millard toward Warren.

The night was cold and whoever it was had been in the last few minutes because the prints were already blurring away into the falling snow. I walked beyond the last couple prints beyond our door and noticed something different on the falling-down porch connected to the kitchen:

On one of the hooks that supported awnings in a better time in the house’s history was hung a drab-green-enameled, battery lantern with an aluminum handle that had a large white light on the front and a red one at its top and bottom. One of the red lights was cracked and the switch was rusted in place. There was nothing else to indicate someone had been near the house and the tracks went no further.

Once back inside the house we came to the conclusion that there was only one person who might have left such a gift and I had to make sure in that cold night that she had not gone to squat someplace and freeze.

We went back out with the dog and followed the almost-erased prints up Millard across Warren toward Weadock. If she had gone left on Weadock, that meant she was warm and mostly safe; if she went right on Weadock, then she was in the basement of a partially-roofless house that had been empty for the better part of a decade and some thinking would have to be done.

When we got to Weadock, if was obvious she had gone to the left and warmth so we went home and took the Madonna’s gift into the kitchen thankful that our roof was whole and the attic was a warm place from which to watch the weather as it wiped the neighborhood’s features clean for another day.
SPM

A Rosary of Naked Indian Trees

We left Houston in a white minivan headed toward the Mexican border with Jim and Linda Hendrix for a visit to their home in Coatapec. I was thrilled to the point of needing extra stops to use the bathroom that we were finally going to Mexico.

Growing up in Texas, I had a very distinct impression of Mexico mainly informed through dogmatically proud Texans waffling on about the history of the Republic and by watching too many John Wayne films with my dad.

Mexico, I thought, was arid and full of sparsely scattered adobe structures where women in long braids bent over babies and calla lilies while men wearing large hats hearded cattle from the backs of little spotted horses.

The Mexicans I knew never seemed to fit into the impression I had of the place they were supposed to come from, so I was looking forward to eliminating the gap between what I knew and what I thought I knew.

It took a bit to get through the border because the Mexican authorities had to be convinced that we were not making the trip just to sell our vehicle in Mexico and avoid the importation tax that was then about equivalent to 150% of the vehicle’s value.

Once across, I could see no difference in the countryside. I set myself up for a disappointment and focused, instead, on chatting with Linda about her collection of orchids and trying to find out about where we were going through their young friend, Pepe’s, broken English.

We drove all day only seeing a few fist-fulls of other vehicles, all headed north and we were stopped once for an inspection by machine-gun-sporting policemen. We only passed one gas station all day and Jim wisely stopped to make sure the tank was full before continuing south.

That night we pulled into a small, white-washed stucco motel that had a small café built on one end and when we went inside to have a late dinner I noticed that the café with its rough tables, light yellow walls and white vinyl floor was spotlessly clean.

I don’t recall what was on anyone else’s’ plate, but I remember what I ordered: Chicken boiled in its own stock and with cumin, cilantro, mild peppers, onions and tomatoes until the meat fell off the bones and corn tortillas cut like noodles were added at the last to soak up all the liquid. It came plated with mild goat cheese shredded over it and black beans with pork on the side. I had never had the dish before, but I make it for myself every now and again with a grin.

After dinner we all went to our very sparse, very clean rooms and slid in between sheets that felt slightly damp in the cool of the intensely humid night.

The next morning we woke early, went to the café and had a breakfast that was ordered by everyone at the same time, but came out one plate at a time as the woman serving us cooked each person’s food.

We were on the road all the next day and, in the afternoon, the land began to become more green and the fences actually grew because they had been made by hammering stakes from a tree whose name meant naked indian; when the stakes were pounded into the ground they leafed out and each fence became a line of trees connected by wire.

Finally getting close to Vera Cruz we turned inland to Jalapa where every driver made his own lane wherever he could find space to squeeze a car – many of which were forty to sixty years old if a day – and working our way out of town we headed further into the rainforest at the foot of a volcano to the smaller town of Coatapec and the Hendrix’ house.

The next days were full of seeing, tasting and going everywhere and meeting everyone the Hendrix’ knew and Sunday meant a full day of church in the concrete building with its crude wooden benches where they met.

A tiny woman named Maria was the first to arrive. She lived more than an hour away, but she was always the first to arrive and the last to leave on Sundays. She was very old. No one really seemed to know how old; Maria herself was not sure, but could remember the Mexican Civil War… After her came Pepe and Manuel, their parents Pepe and Marga and all their extended family ( I remember a cousin my age named Hugo and many aunts and uncles).

After church ended in the late afternoon, we all went to Pepe (the older) and Marga’s house to eat. The living space was on the second floor and we quite filled it. Over the next few hours we ate fried stuffed squash blossoms, rice, beans, pulled meat, cold fruit (I learned how to say naranja – orange) and drank an amazingly refreshing mixture of pureed melon, tapioca, sugar and cold water.

Everyone laughed, shared stories that included a lot of large gestures and became comfortable in each other’s space. I felt mostly complete in that group and felt that they had a wealth that I could not begin to understand but could appreciate nonetheless.

Jim always had deeply penetrating eyes that could twinkle suddenly as his white-streaked black beard broke to reveal an infectious grin. Solidly built, full head of hair and gentle in everything he did, he had the appearance of the best kind of rabbi.

For the first time all day, I had broken away from the group and went over to the small window to look out over the street. Turning back to watch the room, I could feel my face warming into a slow smile and Jim walked over to lean his back against the wall beside me.

“Now you have seen Mexico,” he said as he also surveyed the room, seeing all and loving equally.

And I realized: Mexico had nothing to do with beaches, volcanos, fields of coffee trees, noises, smells or a different language. Mexico had everything to do with the people who happened to live among these things and I couldn’t help but reflect – even as a teenager – they were incredibly resilient, resourceful and more full of the joy of living than almost anyone I had ever met in my life who supposedly had more to give thanks for. The world grew considerably that evening in my understanding.

The concept of diversity has come up a few times recently in the life of the neighborhood in committee meetings for events coming this summer and over coffee with neighbors.

I didn’t have a close acquaintance with the word “diversity” on that trip to Mexico. It wasn’t nearly so popular a button to push then, I suppose. I got a sense of what was to become my understanding of that concept later in life, though: I had been caught off guard and out of my own bubble of experience so that – for the first time in my life – I simply saw the world as it was. No nagging desire to change one little thing to make the view into what I perceived to be perfect. No judgment upon the differences between their lives and mine. No question of any kind; just sight of what was and an acceptance that did not require a developed tolerance.

Diversity, then, was not an action taken or a tolerance exercised by individuals temporarily in control of a situation. Diversity was, and is, a delightful fact of humanity. The world is diverse in the same way that the world is in color and surround sound; maybe it takes a rosary of naked indian trees leading into a rainforest full of strangers to open one’s eyes properly. Maybe, but I think one moment of unguarded sight could be easier to find than that.
SPM

Life as a Freak Show

This blog is in sad need of updating and many of the "Up-dates" are of things that happend some time ago, so they will be back-dated accordingly. In the meantime, I am at Dawn of a New Day sipping coffee and have learned this:

Sometimes life is reduced to a bag of flaming Cheeto's and your dreams can become realities before you know it, so pack a change of clothing. Just ask Linsey.
SPM

Places Called Home

“We had come home and if home was not what we had expected, never mind, our need for belonging allowed us to ignore the obvious and to create real places, or even illusory places, befitting our imagination.”Maya Angelou

Her husband worked at the hospital around the block from my house and said there was no such thing as a Lesser Cathedral District and she chided me for having given her faulty information as we sat having coffee. Looking out the window at passing traffic, I reflected: I knew it existed; I lived there. The neighbors all lived there. John lived under a porch there. Lorie walking through with all she owned in the bags she carried about with her was acquainted with every stray kitten there. We all knew it was so. I thought about trying to convince her that what I knew to be so was so, but – instead – I let it be. We had our coffee and she told how she once took plywood, cardboard and a steak knife and built a fireplace where there wasn’t one before. It occurred to me that a woman like that would figure out what was so on her own; she would know it was so when she saw what had been made there for herself because faith is, after all, a very tactile thing at times.
S.P.M.

A Grandmother's Eyes

“She had that spontaneous quality of aliveness which illuminates people who have already done a lot of their dying, and I think I am beginning to understand the truth of that.”
Madeleine L’Engle, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother

From the first moments that I can clearly remember, where ever she was – and that was usually the house at 3910 Smith - it felt safe. She is gone, after a fashion, but I will always remember: A house near the river that smelled of popcorn and clean laundry in the winter and lilacs and fresh-cut grass in the summer, the sounds of the evening news and passing trains and – always at the center of all – her blue eyes and warm smile. I have never gone back to the house after it sold; I suppose that way I can believe nothing has changed.
S.P.M.

Holiday Strength Prozac

I was thumbing through my coffee table book of New Yorker cartoons recently and saw a drawing of a huge pill bottle with a label reading, “Holiday Strength Prozac.” It was funny. So I smiled. But, seriously, where can I get some?

The holidays are upon us and with them are bourne so many emotions that it is often impossible to sort, identify or trace one before the next is tugging at us for attention. Case in point: I found myself yesterday standing in the middle of a wide empty room at a client’s holding a green christmas ornament in one hand tearing up for no good reason.

It suddenly ocurred to me for about the thousandth time that Christmas was coming and something was missing; I felt that I was in a taxi on the way to the airport and knew I had forgotten something critical to the trip without knowing what it was I had forgotten. Then I remembered: My grandmother was gone.

She died a few years ago, but – somehow – the coming of Christmas without her still causes a catch in my throught and tears in my eyes at the most random moments. I stood there marvelling that life could go on so seamlessly without her, and, at the same time, felt like a child who woke up in the middle of a bad dream; it took a minute to get my bearings and find my place in life and that moment again.

I find the older I get, the less I seem certain of anything and there are days when life is reduced to its most primal needs written on a wheel that never stops turning: Work. Food. Warmth. Fear. Yearning. Love. There are no words to quantify these things in real time; they are known by face, form and feel alone and if one of them is fractured we become totally disoriented.

Disorientation can be overcome, and I have a friend who, very sensibly, cooks when she is not feeling up to competing with the world. So, some weekends when everyone else is busy about things for themselves, she can be found at home listening to country music, sipping a glass of something, and turning mounds of various ingredients into a refridgerator packed to bursting with enough labelled packages to feed her staff and random hungry relatives for the next week.

They read like post-its your mom would leave in your lunch box, those packages, but grown-up: Smashed potatoes like you never imagined! Aparagus sauteed with bacon. Special shrimp oriental stir fry especailly for Linda! Turkey noodle soup with extra thick noodles. Really wild rice. The best stuffing in the world. She calls it her therapy and I know she takes comfort in the fact that through feeding people she is needed.

Everyone needs to be needed . . . almost more than anything else – more than to be fed, clothed, admired or loved – we need to be needed. But sometimes even being needed cannot fend off the lurking, malignant feeling that we are superfluous. We are extra. We are disposable. So what, then?

I don’t know, and this sometimes scares me. I feel I might disappear entirely if I let go for a second the carefully compsed image that is myself. There are moments like the one yesterday – ornament in hand – when I feel as if I were holding myself confidently in my own hands like a soapy dish that suddenly, inexplicably, slips from my fingers and falls into dangerous fragments at my feet before I can catch my next breath. I look about to see if anyone else has noticed, pick up the fragments and pretend that everything is fine, but I still know that something elemental has changed and I am a little less certain than I had been.

The days that make up November and December are like a great sink of soapy dishes waiting to be dropped while attempting to prove to others that I am worth enough to be among them and to myself that I am needed. So it’s a good thing that the holidays require so much cooking, after all.
SPM
(Note: Lori passed away aver a year ago, but this piece, written in 2007 originally, demonstrates how she just comes to mind everytime a large meal is prepared or a holiday looms.)
 
 

The Stairs of Home

Our house was not prepared to offer us a home when we met it about a year ago. With all first floor windows and the front door boarded over, the vestibule was almost black and most of the building’s nakedness was semi-concealed.

The only sounds in the house were the wind whipping down the street and thin flakes of plaster and paint falling now and again from the water-damaged ceilings to break with a sound like old eggshells on the dusty oak and maple floors.

The library to the left once had a detailed window part way up its main wall, but that had been stolen by looters, as had been the detailed columns in the living room opening to the right. All that was left of either were a ply-wood covered hole on one side and a wide sagging arch on the other with prints in the old shellac of bases and capitals to hint at what had once been there.

The living room ceiling had settled into a crackled grid with odd little pieces laying on the floor. The fireplace wall with its green tile looked very bare since the mantle had been stolen and someone had tried to remove some of the tile hearth resulting in a jagged edge looking a lot like teeth broken in a bar fight.

Pocket doors – miraculously remaining – led from the living room to what was once the dining room with another missing window in its bay and a Lazy-Boy-sized patch in the ceiling where the bathroom above must have caused problems in the past.

In the kitchen there was no stove, a sink in a rusted metal cabinet connected to nothing and drywall sagging from the ceiling because it was screwed up with no respect to joists.

The dust and grime of an empty house were everywhere as you headed up the stairs to the bedrooms and bath on the second floor, but at least there some of the windows that had been only cracked had been patched using acrylic sheeting and silicone so some sunlight broke into the rooms.

The bathroom had yellow-green tub connected to nothing, a toilet that had shattered from cold and a sink that had to be re-plumbed.

The house had been so long empty that even mice had moved elsewhere and scattered all through the house – mainly painted a much-grubbied flat white – were scrawled profanities, references of love to a girl named Felina and notes to a personage named Joel who was to stay out of the kitchen and bathroom.

The only space under that was possibly tame was the attic, and that possibility was only visible after tapping into the fort-building skills of a creative childhood. So we tapped. And hauled and rearranged until we were to be found squatting in our own attic. Since the budget set for the house by our broker didn’t go as far as he’d hoped before he passed away, it would be another seven months before the house had working plumbing beyond a basic toilet and it will be this Christmas before the kitchen is functioning.

But this year has been an interesting one in the development of our concept of home. Living on the third floor of a house set one-half a floor above ground meant a lot of stairs. Up from the back door to the kitchen. Up from the front hall to the bay in the landing. Up from the bay to the upper hall. Up from the hall to the attic with its pine floor, walls and ceiling.

A sofa and chair. Coffee table. Bookcases and mountains of books. Art supplies. Our make-shift dining table. Boxes of china. Paintings tucked wherever they would fit. A bed in one corner. Dressers in the back dormer. Everything involving home meant hauling up and down seemingly endless stairs to a space that was an odd hybrid of Rapunzel’s tower, Swiss Family Robinson’s tree house and Anne Frank’s annex. Home became all about stairs and waiting the winter out so we could begin expanding into the rest of the house.
SPM