Clairhaven Street

My mother cut armfuls of lilacs, filling vases and jars in every room of our house. One vase, a blue piece of depression glass ringed by a thin, scalloped collar, held them best, the narrow base restraining their stems, allowing a lavendar and green explosion above--the thick branches pushing the blossoms haphazardly outward.  In the shade of the lilacs and forsythia grew a low forest of lily of the valley, their bell-shaped blossoms rising from leafy pod-like curls. I'd lie on my stomach and pluck them one by one, surprised at the strength of their resistance to my pulling, until I had enough to fill the tiniest of my mother's  crystal vases.

My own lilacs are on my kitchen table as I write, their dank sugar changing my patterns of thought. One of my three bushes burst this year, but still I don't have enough blossoms to fill my house. I left some to scent my yard while I drink cups of coffee on the deck, collecting myself in the dark. After I'd arranged my lilacs in a clear glass vase, I went back out to the shady section of my yard, where a small group of green leaves curved protectively around stems of bell-shaped flowers. I should have planted them when we first bought our house, but, even so, five lily of the valley shoots sit in a tiny vase on my kitchen sink helping me while I remember my mother.

 

 

Today, I'm still a little lost in the scent of the lilacs on my table. I'm writing in the kitchen, the lilacs directly in front of my laptop, and I'm struggling to stay put. The syrupy scent still threatens me, pushing relentlessly into my mind like the haphazard branches, toppling me back to my childhood home on Clairhaven Street.

 

It's like this: writers are pretty much always somewhere else. I know it appears that I'm here now (you can see me, right?), but most of me, the prime cut of me, is sitting on the low concrete wall just beneath the rose bushes on Clairhaven Street. My family will come upon what they think is me, their voices creating a forceful NOW, and I emerge from where I've been, disoriented, blinking furiously to find myself in a different place.

 

"What did you say?" I ask them, peering over my reading glasses.

 

"You aren't even listening!"

 

.Ah, if they only knew where I'd been. All I can do is try to take them back there with my words.

 

Curious about Annie Dillard's writing philosophy? Read The Writing Life.
 

I've been envious of Annie Dillard, another Pittsburgh girl, who jumped with both feet into her writing world. Once working in front of a window with an engaging view, she covered it with brown paper, blocking the invasive NOW with packing tape. What would it feel like to lose control, to give myself over to the world inside my head? I wish I may, I wish I might, but I can't do it. Instead, I am a cheater, sneaking around on both parts of my life. My own dear writing life is surely jealous of my family, but I suspect my famiy doesn't have cause to know about my affair. 

 

This weekend, I'm taking Clairhaven Street to a writing conference in Pittsburgh. I'm hoping that they will be able to smell the lilacs, too. Wish me luck.

 

 

 

The house is quiet today (the NOW momentarily at bay), and I plan to build a tunnel of words to and from Clairhaven Street. I may stay for a lunch of my father's tomatoes.

 

 

Time travel to my childhood inspires a little caprese salad for lunch. I managed to find some decent tomatoes and basil at the market, and with a little fresh mozzarella and good olive oil, you can't go wrong. My mouth waits anxiously for summer tomatoes and my own garden-grown basil, but I don't think I'll ever find tomatoes like those my father grew on Clairhaven Street. I'll probably keep looking, though.

 

If you are still a little hungry, a smattering of Clairhaven Street (in very early versions!) can be found here: Tomato Whispers, Going Home, and Cutting Lilacs.

French Onion Soup

"Your due date is December 24th."

"No, no, no, no. Are you sure? That can't be right."

The doctor looked at me over the top of his reading glasses. It was 1991, and questioning medical authority was still unpracticed--especially when the questions came from pregnant women.

"It's just that I have three small children at home. I can't...I mean, seriously...I really CAN'T be in the hospital on Christmas Eve. Are you really, really sure?"

Was that pity or annoyance crossing his face?

Yes, yes, he was sure.

I'd come to the doctor in the first place--folded my clothes on the chair--wrapped the thin paper robe around me--sat on the edge of the stainless steel table, arms gripping elbows--because of my husband. Well, yes, of course, THAT, but really because of this conversation:

Me: I can't believe I've had the flu for so long. I just keep feeling like total crap. I mean, how long can this last?
Him: Jill.
Me: What?
Him: Look at me.
Me: What?
Him: You don't have the flu. You're pregnant. You should take a test.
Me: What?

Now, keep in mind that I pretty much knew I was pregnant immediately with my first three children. This time, my husband, a human being with no uterus, knew before I did. This is why I think I didn't know:
1. my oldest was sixish.
2. my second was four.
3. my youngest was, well, one.
4. my husband traveled...a lot.

After the baby was born, we spent a lot of time in surival mode: everyone safe and fed, nothing more and nothing less. (Well, there were the times that two-year-old Laura moved baby Rachel from the couch onto the floor when I went to the bathroom, that Laura drank Dimetap while wearing her bathing suit in February and the nurses at St. Clair Hospital narrowed their eyes at me while I held the baby in one arm and my poor toddler's head in the other while she vomited the contents of her stomach, that I sliced open the palm of my hand on a sheet of heavy-duty aluminum foil while helping Matty build a diorama of the Mall in Washington, DC while Andy wrote his spelling words and the girls pounded on their high chair trays and blood dripped on the Lincoln Memorial). [Editor's Note--these events are just a representative selection of the chaotic events that occurred in the Sunday household].

On the night of the bloody-monument incident, I looked at my babies--Matty's sweet face open with expectation with the promise of this project; Andy's red head bent over the paper, freckled hands carefully looping letters; Laura's little voice piping "Why, Mommy?" as she watched me tear the foil, squirming impatiently in her high chair; and the baby, Rachel's hands smacking the tray top, her movements sending cheerios into flight--and the deep ache of parenthood washed over and through me...this would not be the only time I would lovingly and unintentionally fail them.


In California, where golden warmth is a daily presence, where oranges mimic the sweetness of the sun, they call her Sunny. She is that, my own share of the sun, and decidely much more wonderful than a prolonged bout with the flu.







So, I'm here to tell you now that my golden moment was at the end of a day, when my babies were fed, bathed (so sweet-smelling in their soft necks), and piled around me for story time, all of us leaning into one another, through a weird blend of mother will and metaphysics morphing into one. I'd close the last bedroom door, tiptoeing away, a peaceful lullaby beating in my heart. Yeah, even if I had to bleed on the Lincoln Memorial again (even repeatedly, just like the seemingly never-ending Groundhog Day) I'd buy the ticket for that time-travel experience without hesitation.

About a week after my first boy left for college, the sweet-faced Matty of the Mall project, a bottle of Red Hot in the Giant Eagle condiment aisle did me in, his absence in my daily life made so clear to me by the fact that I didn't need to add that thick, spicy liquid to my purchases. His siblings followed suit, of course, as it should be, and my cart was less full of their wants and needs.

"What would I  like for dinner?"

Hmmm....now that's a question that took some time to answer.

My children call me for my recipes, often while pushing their own carts through grocery stores as far away as Maryland and California. (Soon, there will be calls from Helena, Arkansas, as "Why, Mommy?" Laura begins work there.) When Laura dropped her college meal plan, after she'd moved into an apartment as a sophomore, we'd spend an hour or so on the phone while she strolled the aisles of Safeway.

Sunny Rachel girl would roll her eyes, "Are you really on the phone while she SHOPS?" It wouldn't be long until I shopped long distance with her, too. Now we trade Snapchats of our separately-prepared feasts.

In my comfy chair, with my feet up and my eyes closed, I walk next to my girls, sharing recipes. Later, a little bit of me shows up at far-removed dinner tables, sometimes at four different spots in one night!

Look! There I am.

On a weekend like this, when Mother's Day temperatures threaten to take us back into the chilly zone, and I long for that long lost golden hour, it's best to comfort ourselves with some French Onion Soup. The most glorious French Onion Soup I've ever "ohhhheeeddd" over spoonful by spoonful, I ate at a little bistro in Paris situated across the river from Notre Dame (but within perfect view of its spires), and just down the street from Sylvia Beach's legendary bookstore--Shakespeare and Company. The best version I've made myself is fashioned after Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond's creation; she concludes her beautiful step-by-step photographic instructions by saying "It’s everything, is what it is."

When my children were little, I often made French Onion Soup in the crockpot. I like this new version better, and when they call me for the recipe, here's what I'll tell them:

There will probably be tears. [Editor's Note: Feel free to substitute a mental image of the Lincoln-Memorial incident here.]



Things will probably get a little messy. [Editor's Note: Feel free to insert "Try, try, and try again" or "I think I can...I think I can..." here.]

 

 

 

Quality counts. Buy the good cheese. [Editor's Note: Feel free to subsitute "To thine ownself be true" here.]

 

 

Don't cook with wine that you wouldn't drink. [Editor's Note: Feel free to substitute "I hope you dance" here.]

 

 

 

 

Hot cheese fixes everything. [Editor's Note: Feel free to substitute "I will always love you" here.]

 

 

  Here's Pioneer Woman's recipe for everything.  Enjoy.