Senses and Memories

I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers.  I remember where a toad may live, and what time the birds awaken in the summer - - and what trees and seasons smelled like  - - how people looked and walked and smelled even.  The memory of odors is very rich."

 - John Steinbeck, East of Eden 

When I teach developmental English, one of the few directives I'm given for the direction of the course is that my students write a minimum of three essays, one of which needs to be descriptive in nature.  When I introduce this assignment, I have to segue into adjectives.  I wait patiently while no one volunteers the definition of an adjective, hoping it's a fear of speaking up in class that's hindering my students, & that I am not standing in front of twenty-five college students who don't know what an adjective is.

When the blank stares continue, I give them examples of topics that lend themselves to description, & these are always memories of people & places seared in my mind because of the sensory details that remain vivid, despite the expanse of years.  We discuss the intricate link between our senses & our memories, & I usually ask them to close their eyes and think about the way their grandmother's house smelled, or the sound of their grandfather's voice, or the feel of the sand under their feet on the beach, the rhythmic lapping of the waves.  Usually, at least a few of their eyes light up at this point & I know I will soon read a few essays about grandma's chocolate chip cookies baking, or grandpa smoking a pipe while he told a story,  or read about a gaggle of cousins playing ball barefoot, the cool, crisp grass crunching under their feet.

Last week, my Aunt Donna returned from spending Easter with her daughter & granddaughter in Dallas, & brought with her a sizable load of clothes & shoes Marykate has outgrown.  I literally squealed with delight as I sifted through the goodies, immediately trying some of the outfits on Reagan, much to her chagrin.

A peek at the loot:

Box - O - shoes:

One of the first outfits I tried on Reagan, & her choice of shoes, black Crocs, which were by far the item that most excited her:

Like me, Reagan doesn't have an older sister, but alas, when you have cousins, you can still participate in the childhood hand-me-down ritual.  Growing up, I had three older female cousins, two who were just old enough for me to inherit their old clothes while I could still wear them (I eventually grew taller than both of them).  Both of them three years my senior, I remember feeling a myriad of emotions regarding them when I was younger, similar, I am sure, to the mixture of love & envy & general awe a young girl feels about her older sister as they grow alongside one another.  We played together, we fought, we had sleepovers, we shared birthdays & holidays, we greedily dove into our Mamaw's chocolate pie while seated at the kids' table, we welcomed new cousins to the fold, we vacationed together, we grew up, we fell in love, we married, & we began reproducing ourselves.

This pic is worth posting, if only for a glimpse at my mother's awesome shirt:  

That's me in the bottom left corner, curious about the two newbies:

I know my mother bought me plenty of new clothes when I was younger, but truth be told, I loved my cousin's hand-me-downs.  They were, in my young mind, obviously stylish since my super cool, wise older cousins had selected them & christened them for me.  At thirty-one, I cannot recall what any of the clothes looked like, & I have no idea where they are today.  I am sure my younger sister may've worn them after me, & after that, Goodwill, perhaps.  

What I do remember is the way they smelled.  I could open a trash bag full of clothes today & tell you whether they belonged to Jennifer, or Elizabeth.  I loved the smell as much as I loved the clothes themselves, & today, almost fourteen years after her death, I wish I could open a bag of Elizabeth's clothes & revel in that crisp, clean smell.  Like her, it was unique, & it could never be replicated.  I am thankful for a happy & healthy Marykate, & her mother, my cousin, & I hope in adulthood, Reagan has memories of her cousins that are as precious to her as mine are to me.

It was bittersweet for me to dig through Marykate's clothes, & being me I thought of the closing line of The Great Gatsby, "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." 

It's a bit shocking what will pull you, sometimes reluctantly, into your past, but I'm learning that watching your child grow has a funny way of triggering your memory.  Thanks for the clothes & the shoes, Jennifer & Marykate, & may there be many happy years of hand-me-downs.  

AZ  

Easter Musings

So, Reagan's second Easter has come & gone.  To use her new word, "Wow."

Aunt Jessica was in town for the weekend, so Reagan & I joined her & my mom for lunch at The Olive Garden Friday for some pre-Easter mac & cheese:

Messiness

Trey & I go through a lot of paper towels.  Between the paper towels, Reagan's diapers, & Trey's affinity for styrofoam cups, we are the people who inhabit tree huggers' nightmares.  Throw in Trey's NRA membership & the fact that our firstborn is named after Ronald Reagan, & I bet our names are on a list somewhere.

But, I digress.  The paper towel rolls flow like a river in our house, partly because Reagan creates genuine messes, & partly because I am as anal retentive as they come.  Here's a few of her most recent creations:

A yogurt/cheerio bonanza:

A red popsicle (note that red popsicle stains everything in its path, including the child eating it):

As much as I hate food messes, they're almost always easy to clean up.  I always think about that Bounty tag line, "Life's messy; clean it up."  Kudos to the ad people who thought that one up, because it's certainly the only paper towel ad slogan with which I'm familiar.

Life is messy, & most of the messes can't be easily sopped up with a few paper towels, & this is, I've discovered, a source of great consternation not only for me, but for other young mothers.  For the past few months, I've attended a ladies Bible study on Wednesday mornings.  We're all married & have young kids, & as I've listened to them share, often hearing someone else verbalize my own thoughts, the overarching theme that has emerged is that we all struggle with a desire for control that, if unchecked, can become crippling.  It's nice to know that I'm not the only young wife & mother who wants to play puppeteer, but, nonetheless, it's a desire that can have dire consequences.  Often we discuss our greatest fears, and all of them boil down to situations in which the tenuous control we think we have over events & people in our lives is stripped from us, which would basically reveal the truth that we never had the control we were clinging to in the first place.  We talk about our prayer lives, & one day, a wise member of the group stated that she used to constantly pray that "such & such" would not happen.  You can fill in the blank with all the things we "pray away,"  - cancer, death, etc.  - & she stated that now, while she prays for her loved ones' health & safety, she always prays that no matter what happens here on Earth, she will one day be reunited with her husband & kids in Heaven, where there will be no need to pray the fervent prayers for safety every mother knows by heart.

In my three decades, I've witnessed situations over which I had absolutely no control, or rather, I was smacked upside the head & reminded of the powers that war for control, namely, the Lord & Satan.  A cousin who died at twenty, a dear friend who died young, leaving his two-year-old fatherless, my parents losing their parents, my friend's marriage imploding through no fault of her own, leaving her to pick herself up after being dealt a hand I wouldn't wish on anyone, my aunt diagnosed with breast cancer . . . this is my list, but we all have one.   We like the illusion of control we have when things are going well, but it is an illusion, and it's an attempt to fill a need that only faith & trust in God can fill, trust that, regardless of what happens (which we have no control over, anyway), all things work together for the good of those who love Him.  That's all things.  All things, even the ones Satan throws our way.  Jesus died a cruel death on a cross, which was the ultimate victory, seemingly, for Satan, but Jesus rose, because there was a greater plan in place.  All things.

I know I will reread this blog in the future.  Here's a small glimpse into the future.

This is Reagan doing her imitation of the Occupy protestors after being denied her daddy's cell phone:

If she sees these pics in the future, I'm betting her dad's socks & crocs combo will embarrass her far more than her behavior.

Believe it or not, having a child is helping me slowly let go of some my controlling (anal retentive) tendencies.  I do clean up the food messes immediately, but at night, I get in bed now (rather than straightening all the toys, finding the puzzle pieces, etc.).  I am still anal about some things, but, I've always been a big proponent of self-awareness, so it counts for something that I am aware of my tendencies (right?).  I pray that as Reagan ages, I learn when to exert my control, & when to relinquish it & allow her to make her own decisions.  Striking that balance is going to be perhaps the greatest feat I'll endeavor, especially if she hasn't inherited her father's passivity.   

For the better part of the past year, I've been writing a book.  It's nothing earth shattering, just a little fictional world I've created where I spend time when the mood strikes.  I don't know that it will ever see life outside my MacBook (but still, that's a good life), but if it's good for nothing else, it's teaching me that one way to safely exercise my need for control is to write.  I've created characters, & they do everything I want, say everything I want, & go exactly where I will them to go.  If I want two people to fall in love, they do.  I create messes in character's lives, but take great joy in painstakingly righting wrongs and restoring order.  It's a bit of a power trip, but I think it helps me let go a little in the world of nonfiction, where I only control myself, a skill I continue to fine tune.  

AZ

Climbing the Rungs

Fixations

The past week, Reagan & I spent a lot of time indoors as I began my yearly struggle to cope with the pollen.  Green grass & flowers are nice & all, but they come at a price, & I pay through the nose (literally) every year.  Reagan & I filled the hours in the house with our fun new fixations - small appliances for her, The Hunger Games series for me.  

Between my sinuses & my full fledged obsession with The Hunger Games novels, I've neglected my blog.  I typically blog when I happen to be online doing other things, & between blowing my nose, nursing a hacking cough, & spending time with Katniss & Peeta (*sigh* . . . how I love the boy with the bread), my MacBook has taken a backseat.  

Rear View

It's been another eventful week for our little family.

Reagan vomited all over herself & her car seat.  Yeah.

I watched it all in my rearview mirror.  She coughed a little, & then once, twice, three times she vomited.  I gagged all the way home, hoping she didn't have a stomach virus (which she did not, thankfully).  Naturally, I took Reagan inside immediately & stripped her down & cleaned her up.  What I didn't do was thoroughly clean her car seat . . . fast forward to a few days later, & picture Trey opening the car because he plans to take it to Baton Rouge.

Animal Farm

No, we're not reading Orwell . . . yet.

No metaphor.

Real farm.

Real animals.

We experienced both this past Saturday.  Reagan was invited to a friend's birthday party at Papa Simpson's Farm in Arcadia.  My parents & I were hoping she'd sleep some on the drive over, but of course, she didn't, so we hit the farm sans any nap.

This goat greeted us upon arrival.

Once all the party-goers arrived, everyone was herded onto this trailer.  This hay-filled trailer . . . in anticipation, I'd already taken a Benadryl.  

Putting on our coat:

Reagan loved riding in the trailer, likely because it mimicked the rocking motion she so loves, & she wasn't required to be strapped into anything to ride. 

First stop: baby chicken.  Anyone who wanted to got to pet a baby chicken, & then get doused with hand sanitizer.

Baby goats . . . they were really cute.  Even though all the children were gentle, Mama goat was not happy, & I totally sympathized with her.  I have come perilously close to raising my voice to complete strangers in the grocery store who, though they are complete strangers, touch my child.  These are likely the same people who thought it was appropriate to touch my belly when I was pregnant.

That's me (above) in the background photographing it from this angle:

Next up: Maze-o-Hay:

Bored with the maze, Reagan set out down the path.  If you weren't already, now you can hum John Denver's "Country Roads," which is what I was singing as I followed Reagan.

She quickly separated herself from the group, clearly feeling no pressure to rush, or even stay in the general area of everyone else.

Country rooooads, take me hooome . . . 

Papa trying to persuade her to join her friends . . . 

To the plaaaace I beeeloooong . . . 

Taking her time . . . 

Next stop: feeding the sheep . . . again, no metaphor.

Reagan & Elizabeth, two of the younger members on the farm tour, contemplating eating the corn intended for the sheep:

After feeing the sheep, several members of our group were released into the hills to 'catch a goat.'  Reagan continued to wander on her own elsewhere, while I switched from "Country Roads" to "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music.

Next up: chickens.  I know, gag.  I could jump in the shower just looking at these pictures. 

A study in contrast: My mom's Kate Spade purse resting on the fence post.

Reagan longing to return to the comforts of home:

Next up: Shetland Pony

Despite an escort, she was skeptical:

Last stop: Cake, finally!

Reagan was fascinated with this ice chest:

Ready to board the trailer again:

Swinging while everyone finishes their cake:

Our escort for the tour:

Last shot of the day:

It was a long afternoon, & Mama's Benadryl kicked in . . . 

It was a unique experience, & one the kids all seemed to love.  I am glad I went, if only to watch several members of my church chasing goats, but I believe I prefer metaphorical farms & animals.  They're much cleaner.  After a nap on the drive back, Reagan & I both enjoyed a pleasant Saturday evening at home surrounded by all the sanitary, electronic gadgets we love.  

AZ