#my grandma on my moms side used to sew us clothes when we were children. and my mom worked as a uuh what it is called

[yellow-yarrow]

When I'm watching a sewing tutorial and everything is going well but then the person in the video is like "ok now set up your sewing machine like this" and they show a touchscreen on the machine fhkskfksjd girl I have a sewing machine from the 70s

[heyellejaye]

A History, of sorts.

There are so many factors that go into the person we become, and how we behave.

(This is such a long post, filled with hella real real life story, so hang with me here.  I promise there’s a sweet little golden nugget of encouragement at the end.  If you just want the nugget, scroll down - I won’t be mad if you do that)

**CW: drug use, neglect, suicidal thoughts**

For as long as I can remember, I was picked on for something.  

Everything.

Anything.

Being fat (I’ve always been fat, unless I was sick)

Wearing clothes that were too promiscuous

Wearing clothes that were too christian

Being too sexual

Being a prude

Being poor

Having money

Wearing old clothes

Wearing new clothes

Being too loud

Not speaking up enough

Having normal hair

Having crazy hair

Listening to weird music

Listening to top 40 music

Eating kale and mushrooms and nutritional yeast and other vegan lovelies

Eating mcDonalds

Having only a dad at home.

Having only a mom at home.

Literally the broad spectrum of nonsense garnered ridicule from early on.

Those used to bother me, but I learned to kinda brush them off.  Of course, it still sewed something of an awareness in my fabric of how “not enough” I was.   

When I was little, I remember one night in particular, my mom making a comment about my “thunder thighs” and how I shouldn’t dance too hard because my belly and legs wobbled too much.

I was 9, she was 35.

To be fair, she was high as fuck with her friends and I was up at 11 pm watching TV on a school night in the 3rd grade, so there was far more wrong with that picture than just being mocked by my mom for being a chunky kid.

I looked at her that night and committed her image into my head. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t end up as ugly as her.   She was 35, and weathered already.  She had worn herself down... tired eyelids hung heavy over vacant, wild eyes, lined all the way around in messy black eyeliner, making her blue-green irises something of an oasis in the whole mess, soot smudges from her pipe or whatever she was smoking that night on the side of her lip.  The image is burned in my mind with incredible detail.

That night shut me down.  Vulnerability became a struggle ever since.   I still don’t really dance, because of the wobble.  I’m working on that.

I wasn’t in her care much longer after that.  I saw so many really horrible things that addiction brings to users and the people in their wake. I can go into that another day, but there are a lot of things children shouldn’t have to deal with, and substance is the catalyst for a lot of that.

My dad got custody of my flock of siblings, and my mom spiraled into her own personal hell.  I didn’t see her very often after that, and when I had a chance, I kinda avoided the opportunities.  The mom that I remember when I was little was gone.  Burned away by substance, and replaced with a shaky, tongue-chewing shell of her former self, at best.

Going through my adolescence and teen-years without a mom didn’t seem weird to me, because the years leading up to it were largely mom-less too.  She was there, but kinda only on paper.  Never really in practice.  Except for the one time she told me that if I ever wanted to try drugs, that I should do them around her and not alone.

(looking back I just have to laugh at that statement, because again, I was 9 when it happened.  bless’er tweakerass heart.)

When we went to live with my dad, we almost immediately started going to church. I’m pretty sure my dad didn’t really know what to do with all these dang kids, and my Grandma who was and still is in constant devotion to a loving Jesus, told him to get us in church, so he did.

When you come from a place of neglect and trauma, surrounded by drug abuse, attending little conservative baptist church is like jumping into an icy lake after a hot shower.  It’s a shock to the system, and takes some pretty intense adjustment in behavior.  You get used to it, but there’s a process.

So, while I know the shift from my previous life to church was beneficial, every time someone said “we don’t say those things here” or “you can’t wear that here” or “That’s not how we behave”, “you should”, “you shouldn’t” was a little icy stab into my person.  Another patch sewn into my cloak of expectations, placed on my shoulders by outside individuals.  

Going through middle school and high school and beyond I was given a whole collection of “You should” and “You shouldn’t” patches that would make any Girl Scout chartreuse with envy.   Peers, adults, teachers, well-meaning relatives, church clergy, employers, boys who liked me, girls who liked me, boys and girls I liked... all sewed expectations into my personality that felt less like adornments and more like restraints.   It was rare (and not until high school, really) that someone poured into -me- specifically, and made me feel like I can be/do/think bigger than my circumstances. There were four people that come to mind, two of whom have now passed.  

(** NOTE - If you’re an educator and maybe you feel like you’re not getting through to the kids, I promise, I PROMISE, you are. You might be the reason they believe or even know that it’s possible to rearrange their stars**)

Somewhere along the way, I developed a chameleon soul.

The shoulds and shouldn’ts were so much to carry on one person, and so limiting, so the cloak became whatever the next person wanted it to be.  It’s hard to shake the tendency to accommodate everyone else’s opinions and preferences for who I should be, but I’m working on that, too.  

Take all of that life... All of those experiences, and mix media into that screwy little cake.  Media that tells us that we need to be skinnier, blonder, taller, have better hair, better makeup, cooler activities, perfect boobs, plumpier lips, brighter eyes, better skills, whiter teeth, perfect mental health, three college degrees, a great job, sunny shiny happy days all the goddamn time.   This part has been beaten to death, but in case you haven’t heard it yet... that’s not attainable.

I was FOREVER apologizing for who I was.  I would always make excuses for why I wasn’t good enough for praise for anything. “You look so pretty” “yeah, but my hair is a mess” “I love this picture you took” “yeah, but the lighting was weird, sooo...”  Gosh, Always excuses.    

I didn’t really learn that lesson well enough early on though.  

I tried.  I did.  But my chameleon soul tried so hard to be everything to everyone and eventually won.

Seasons came and went life happened and I met a boy.  We went from zero to 60, right away.

I got pregnant fast.  I got married fast.  I lost the baby a week and a half after we got married.  I convinced myself that it was God’s will that we lost the baby because we got a fresh start. I played house a while, had a couple more babies, I was attacked by depression, but still pretended to be happy. I did so much battle with my body. Not really for any reason, either.

I was married to a man who didn’t care how I looked, like... ever.  

He didn’t care that I was getting pudgier after babies.  He only ever made commentary when he was drunk.  Which wasn’t super often, but it wasn’t super rare, either.  And that’s not to say he was an alcoholic or anything, he was just more prone to poking fun when he had a few, and I was usually the target.  

He wasn’t big on compliments, and never had favorites, so the only “feedback” I got from my husband was negative.  It kicked me deeper into the need to look better to get positive affirmation, but also... I was SO depressed.  I had two babies under two and I was drowning in my own life.  I couldn’t let anyone know though, because a not-ok version of me was not who anyone wanted me to be.   I apologized for the space I took up.  I apologized for my chubby cheeks and post-baby tummy flab, and my armpit fat, and my wonky boobs and my tired eyes. I didn’t feel like I was worth compliments, honest hugs or good sex... but I pretended to be happy.

God, I worked my ass off to show everyone how happy I was.

(spoiler alert, I wasn’t.  I wasn’t ever fucking happy.  I wasn’t even interested in being alive anymore)    I didn’t want anyone to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do to be a better version of myself, and GOD forbid I admit that my happy world was less than sterling.  Why wouldn’t I be happy?  I had a cute husband and cute kids and a cute business and a cute little chunk of land in a cute little town, I attended a trendy church... literally everything looked so perfect.    Except for the person I saw in the mirror.  

I looked in the mirror and saw those heavy eyelids over dead eyes. I saw the face of a woman I never wanted to become.

I never fell into chemical substance, instead I was addicted to being everything.  The cloak I wore was my drug... and it wasted me away.  It stole the life from my eyes.  I didn’t actively seek deterioration with drugs or alcohol, but every morning, I’d lie in bed and wonder what I could do to end the parade.

I wasn’t ok, and I couldn’t talk about it with just anyone, but I had a couple of far-away friends with whom I could share the heavy thoughts.  They were ears and shoulders when I needed them to be.  They didn’t know JUST how heavy the thoughts were, but they were there for the parts I was willing to share.  They encouraged.  They challenged my self doubt and allowed space for me to be proud of myself for small reasons, and then big reasons.   They spoke life into my too-tired heart.  

I decided in that season of life that I would choose my good self. I would make choices that lead to a healthier mind. I would choose deep-down-in-my-bones joy.  I decided that I would live. Not just be alive, but -live-.  I decided that I would create things that I loved.  I’d hug with my whole self.  No ass-out hugs.  When someone fell into my arms, they would know that I wanted them there.

I decided to be better for myself and wear a face that my children could remember with fondness and not be ashamed of when they saw the same face in the mirror.  

I decided to choose to be a light for the people that cross my path, as often as I can.   I can’t build their path, but I CAN shine a light so maybe they can find their own.  

I’ve lived a whole life since that season, which is a completely different novel in itself, but the time between has been a healing space.  It’s been a big mistake making space, and a growing space and a hurting space, but the forward motion is remarkable.

I’m a week away from 35.  I hadn’t given a lot of thought to the significance of this age until lately.  I look at my whole self in the mirror and I’m proud of who I am.  I like the face I see in the mirror.  I like the way my eyes shine in pictures.  

I like the life they carry. I like my big soft body.  I like that I’m a safe place to land for my children.  I like that I can wrap hugs around my friends.  I like that my big strong legs can carry me up a mountain, even if I get a little out of breath.  I like that I’ve created humans and I’ve eaten yummy food with people I love.  I am pretty active sometimes, and sometimes I lose a little weight, and sometimes I gain a little weight, and I can’t complain too much because this body serves me so well.  I’m fat, but I also think I’m quite lovely. I don’t see those as opposing adjectives.  Fatness and loveliness can hold hands and play happily.

I have shortcomings.  I deal with some thick anxiety sometimes, and sometimes I eat too many pieces of pizza, then I feel like I need a nap, and sometimes I still take on too much, trying to be all of the things all of the time to everyone,and then I completely drop the ball and let people down...  but I’m working on making better decisions and facing that kooky anxious stuff head on.  It’s a process.

I’m a recovering chameleon.  I’m trying my best every day to not attempt to be everything to everyone, but I struggle.

The shoulds and shouldn’ts still weigh heavy on my shoulders, and some days I wear the cloak longer than others.  Trying to be free of it causes its own issues, but my feet are pointed in the right direction, I think.  

(here’s the nugget if you’re just joining from the top)

I am not the words that other people have placed on me.

I am not the opinions of other people.  

I am not the expectations of other people.

I am not the tragedy I have seen

I am not the circumstances from which I have walked.

I am not the mistakes I have made.

I am not the successes I have gathered.

I am not my illness

I am not my family

I am not everything to everyone.

And neither are you.

I’m not ok sometimes. And sometimes... I’m so ok.

I’m more than ok, I’m incredible, and I believe that the future is only more brilliant than the already radiant now.  

I hope for you, if any of this resonates with you, that you also can see your own radiance.  Not the cloak of shoulds and shouldn’ts that other people have put on your shoulders.  

I hope you really live, and you do the things you love, and you overflow with abundant joy that spills onto the people around you. I hope that when people hug you, they know that you want them there, and I hope that you only hug people you want to hug.  

I hope you know that the body you’re in is a miracle.  The odds of you being here are FOUR TRILLION to one.  You could have showed up in this life as a toaster.  But you’re not.  You’re an incredible being, capable of fat tears and belly laughs and loving someone so much it hurts and inspiring hope and surviving really heavy shit.   Toasters can’t do any of that.

And I hope upon hope that the person you see in the mirror is someone you like.  

[livingwithchallenges]

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.    ‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭22:6‬ ‭KJV‬‬

This morning when my daughter came to pickup Landon after working all night, I started thinking about how much the role of women and men has changed, and how it has affected the children.  It’s not all good and not all bad.  The bottom line is, we need to raise our children in the way of the Lord, because they are our future.

When I was a little girl, my mom stayed home to take us to wherever we needed to go, keep the house, sew our clothes, and cook dinners.  Although our money was limited, as children, my siblings and I benefited greatly from this arrangement.  We learned how to work in the summers on my grandma’s farm, where we picked vegetables and fruits, and assisted with preserving food for the winter.  We learned how to cook, sew and clean house.  We learned how to take care of the yard.  We learned how to make gifts.  We helped gather firewood.  Someone always ensured we weren’t idly sitting around or getting into trouble. My father worked one job, but always worked on my grandmother’s farm. As we grew older, my parents chaperoned events.  On the flip side, my mother, who seemed happy, later confessed not having a voice in the marriage.  Bringing in a salary changes the terms of the relationship.  The amount of salary makes a difference too.

When our children were growing up, I stayed home for the preschool years.  Then, I  went back to college and worked.  Our money was still tight.  I sewed and made most of their clothes and preserved food.  I was around, but often exhausted.  I chaperoned events half asleep. Although I acknowledged and still acknowledge my husband as the head of our household, I felt and still feel we are partners in decisions.  I have been a working mom most of my adult life, but my husband has worked two jobs most of our married life together.  I always dreamed of and wanted to stay home with our children, but it wasn’t a financially feasible option.  We live a modest middle-class life.  Our children didn’t learn how to work at home and spent a great deal of time in front of video games, computers and television.  We didn’t have anyone to help us.  We did the best we could.  However, they turned out well.  So, maybe they did learn something.  Our son is working on his PhD in Computer Science, and our daughter is a married working mom, who is also attending college.

Moving on to the third generation, my daughter and son-in-law work hard.  He has a state government job and he’s in the National Guard.  She is a full-time LPN, who is pursuing her RN.  Our grandson is smart and well-rounded.  We help them with gaps in their schedules by keeping our grandson, which enhances our lives and seems to be good for Landon.  I often want to stay home with my grandson, but realize that’s probably not a good idea for either of us.  My daughter also would like to stay home, and feels the struggles most working moms feel.  However, she seems to have a voice in her marriage.  Even with all the corruption in the world, I feel like her children will turn out the best with the current setup. Once she gets out of school, she won’t be as tired, and her children will have the benefits of multigenerational influences.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is spiritual life.  To my knowledge, my father didn’t believe in God most of my life.  I’m pleased to say he does now, and we enjoy wonderful discussions about the Bible every time we see each other.  My mother has always believed, but I can count the number of times I’ve seen her in Church.  My maternal grandmother, who in her younger days enjoyed going out with her friends drinking and dancing, decided to turn her life around in her mid-forties.  She spent many nights screaming at my father trying to convert him.  Guess what?  It didn’t work.  My father wouldn’t allow me to be baptized when I was young, but both of my parents insisted my siblings and I go to church with my maternal grandparents on Sunday morning.  I think this was their quiet time together, but regardless of the reason, God blessed us, especially me.  My paternal grandparents were Christians.  My paternal grandfather had a stroke when I was a young child and my paternal grandmother couldn’t drive, so it was rare for me to see them in church.   However, the last month of my grandfather’s life, my parents would sneak me into his hospital room where I would sit and read the Bible to him every day.  I was twelve and that certainly impacted the person I have become.

When I was a teenager, I saw some bad things happen in church, so when my children were born, I was very protective.  I allowed them to be baptized, but kept them home until they were about eight or ten years old.  At first I took them to Church alone, because my husband worked on Sundays.  Later we went as a family.  We went to early services on Christmas Eve, where thy participated in the Children’s Program.  When they became teenagers, we changed our traditions and attended the midnight service on Christmas Eve, where they also participated in the program.  We always prayed before meals and at bedtime.

Whenever our children became adults, my son went to church for many years.  He’s not attending now, but I pray he returns.  Our daughter and son-in-law had a beautiful church wedding.  Occasionally, they will attend. Our grandson has attended several times now.  Whenever he comes over, we read Bible stories and continue our prayers at meals.

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Proverbs 22:6 holds true through the generations I have watched grow up.  Although they may depart from the way we taught them, they will return to it repeatedly because it is what they know.  How are you raising your family?  Someone once said it is rare when a child goes beyond his parents in any area of life.  Are you teaching your children about our sweet Lord?  Are you teaching your children how to work and how to give back to others?  Are you teaching your children manners and respect?  The children are our future.  What are we going to do to help them make the world a better place?  Paul teaches in Ephesians 6:4 that you should “provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”  Deuteronomy 11:19 instructs you to  “teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”  If you aren’t doing these things, it’s not too late.  Start today.  There is so much corruption in the world.  I recently watched a documentary about young people feeling empty and turning in the wrong direction.  They don’t understand the emptiness can only be filled by God.  Why not teach your children a better way?

God bless you. ‭

  Christian Families Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.    

[killingthebuddha]

Instead of sitting by her side, helping her gently pass into the afterlife, when my grandma died, I was standing on a street corner in Thessaloniki, Greece, eating a cheese pie.

Since she was old and had complicated health, her death was an inevitability for which I tried to prepare myself. But never, when I imagined that fateful day, would I have guessed that on the bright morning my grandma, in her words, “flew away,” I’d be staring at the Greek sun, while halfway across the world, a Canadian one hadn’t yet broken.

I went to Greece to report on religion. While 95 percent of Greeks identify as Greek Orthodox, the refugee crisis has brought an influx of Muslims into the country. Combined with the economic depression, this makes room for many interesting stories.

My grandma—Baba, is what I called her—was the most religious person I knew. When I’d sleep over she’d dutifully help me say my prayers, tuck me into bed, and then retire to her kitchen table, where a small light illuminated her Bible. She underlined it while listening to a radio preacher.

My Baba had to quit high school to work on the farm, and always told me that she read slowly because of it. But somehow she managed to plow through piles of religious literature, studying about “that good old way.” When I was older, some nights she’d let me sit across the table in the dark and watch her.  It filled me with such emotion that I’d get shivers. I’d borrow all her tracts and study them on my own to learn what she knew.

In Greece, I was going to visit Mars Hill, where Paul first spread the good news to the Greeks, and also to Thessaloniki, where he first preached after his conversion on the road to Damascus.  I was going to write about how religion was affecting Greeks in the wake of the economic depression and the refugee crisis, and I was planning to come back home and tell Baba all about it.

On my way to the airport, before the trip, I phoned her to say goodbye. But when I called the phone rang, and rang.

“I hate leaving this city,” I said to my friend beside me. “Every time I do, I get anxious about what’s going to happen here when I’m gone.”

We both knew the last time I was overseas the man I had been seeing—who I thought was the love of my life—broke up with me in a text message.

“I want to cut his balls off,” Baba had said when I called her, crying, from Scotland. Age made her direct.

The experience scarred me and I was superstitious about going away. Soon I learned that superstition was not unfounded. This time my mom texted me: Baba was in the hospital. She needed surgery. They told my mom to summon the family.

Should I cancel the trip to Greece? I wondered. I had serious doubts about whether Baba’s frail body could survive surgery of any kind. She was a strong woman—a pioneer on the Canadian prairies who used to humor my romantic sensibilities by telling me stories of riding in a horse-drawn sleigh over the snowy fields to school. She could drive a tractor, pickle beets, and sew her own clothes. But hard work had taken its toll on her already-troubled body, and two years earlier she had been half-paralyzed by a stroke. She wasn’t her fighting self, to say the least.

Baba got on the phone, her words obscured by morphine. “Go to Greece and do good work,” she said. So I did.

My first stop in Greece was the capital, Athens, of the Acropolis and Olympic fame. Here I visited a makeshift refugee camp at an abandoned airport. Technically it’s not an official camp, but the government knows about it, and it’s serviced by NGOs from other nations, so it is more official than a squat, unsanctioned communities of refugees living together in abandoned structures, many of which have also appeared in Athens.

I’d never been inside a refugee camp before. The terminal, once a bustling hub of people leaving the country and coming back again, was converted into housing. The irony of being stuck in a building previously used to get people out of Greece must have felt like a slap in the face for the people living there.

The adults there were wary of journalists. It took a while before they warmed to us—only accomplished when their children circled us wanting to play. Our interpreter, who met us after prayer at an underground mosque, told us boredom is a refugee’s greatest enemy. He was a refugee too.

“I thought many times maybe I should…” he trailed off not knowing the words for “slit my wrists,” but showing me the action. He was 19 years old and graying.

A migrant child living at a makeshift camp inside the an abandoned Athenian airport looks cautiously at the camera.

I earmarked this story for Baba. It didn’t really fold into anything I was specifically reporting on, but I thought I would tell her about the children and the interpreter, and she would pray for them. Baba seemed to be doing alright during the first few days I was in Athens. She had made it through surgery and was awake, making everyone laugh with her enthusiasm for drugs.

So I kept reporting, thinking of her, and trying to learn as much as I could about religion in Greece. I wore a Lois Lane jacket. I carried a notebook and a pen. I chased down stories. I took a cab into the Athenian suburbs in the rain to interview a Greek shipping magnate’s son about the Orthodox Church. I met with an evangelical missionary about her work to convert refugees with clean laundry, hot showers, and Bible study.

I obtained a map to all the anarchist squats in Athens. I promptly followed it right to City Plaza Hotel, a squat for families. There I met a 23-year-old university student who was volunteering to keep the squat functioning.

“We’re trying to show solidarity with the refugees,” he said, before describing what had happened when the government tried to dissolve some of the camps where refugees at this squat had been staying previously.

“They didn’t give them shelter, they just put them on the streets,” he said. Another thing Baba would pray about.

A few days into our trip we drove up to Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece. I was interviewing the founder of a fair-trade jewelry startup when I noticed my mom’s text: “Can you call when you have a moment?”

“Is Baba alive?” I asked. I’ve always been one to get straight to the point. “I am in the middle of an interview.”

“Yes,” my mom said, “but when you are able please call.”

And then, immediately following: “How soon until you call?”

Okay, so it was an emergency. I excused myself from the interview and walked out into the Greek sunlight.

Thessaloniki is a pedestrian-centric city and the street was a collision of different realities. Motorbikes whirred past, a gypsy man hobbled by me, and students giggled as they traipsed down the sidewalk. I guessed they were headed to a cafe or bar along the waterfront. No matter what time of day it was, there always seemed to be young people in the cafes. There was no corner to hide in, so I turned my face toward a brick wall and added one more sound to the cacophony—soft crying. My mom put the phone to Baba’s ear so I could say goodbye.

She had been doing fine after her surgery but overnight she had a stroke. She was still breathing, but unconscious, and they weren’t sure how close the end was, but it was coming soon.

It took me two tries to say anything worthwhile. Then I hung up, mad at myself for being in Greece, for having nothing to say, for being unable to hold her hand and kiss her cheeks while they were still warm. I wiped the running mascara from my eyes and went back to finish my interview.

As the sun was setting that day I strolled along the waterfront. Thessaloniki is a gritty city with a choose-your-own-adventure kind of charm. In recent years it has seen growth as a tourist destination for Muslims and Jews seeking their family history, because of its importance to the Ottoman Empire, and also because it was once home to a vibrant Jewish community, dubbed “Mother of Israel,” before the Holocaust. Thessaloniki’s Jewish community perished in Auschwitz. Out of the few who survived, most moved to Israel, although a remnant still remains in the city. Now it’s a place to search for ghosts. Memories of family lines.

It would also hold a piece of my history, I was discovering: the place I was when my Baba died. My tears embarrassed me. I didn’t want the old Greek selling nuts on the boardwalk to see them. Or the Nigerian hawking his wares. Or the university students out having a laugh.

But I could not hide my sorrow. I found a slab of concrete by the water and faced the ocean for anonymity. Baba was the first person with whom I went into the ocean. She was the one who made me love music, religion, travel—and as I looked up at the Greek sun I thanked God that, at least for a few hours more, we still lived underneath it together.

Not long after that, I would eat a cheese pastry on the street while my Baba lay in her hospital bed, surrounded by her children, about to receive the “heavenly crown” she always prayed she’d get.

Boys play a pickup game of soccer outside the an anarchist squat in Athens known as City Plaza.

A few days later, back in Athens, Baba would be gone and I would lose my composure. I would call all my siblings to calmly coach them through their grief; as the oldest sister, it felt like my responsibility to make sure they were managing. But then I would find that I needed someone to look after me.

I would find myself dissolving into tears and miscalculating the time change. That would lead to me spending a day in bed relentlessly calling the man who broke my heart, until he woke up, so I could have someone with whom to cry. It took seven tries before he answered. But it was worth it, he knew what to say.

Baba wouldn’t yet have been in her grave, and I’m not sure if you can “roll over” pre-grave. But if you can, I assure you, my Baba found a way to do it at that moment. She was not a woman who asked for help. Especially not from men whose balls she wanted to cut off.

I would feel trapped in Greece and worry about my family, grieving without me. I would talk to refugees about feeling trapped in Greece. “Do you worry about your family in Afghanistan?” I asked one of them, who had been in Greece for over a year, without any hope of resettlement in Europe, and not knowing what would come next for him.

“All the time,” he said, before adding that, despite missing his family desperately, he was happy at the moment, because someone had helped him find a warm, safe place to stay. Before, he had been in a camp where he shared a leaky tent with 12 people and needed to walk out into the forest to relieve himself.

That’s how I learned about religion in Greece, you see. I learned what religion meant in Greece. Reporting on religion, visiting refugees, calling desperately for help until the phone was answered, missing my Baba like I’ve never missed anyone before, I realized that pure and unblemished religion is this: to look after people in their time of distress and to not let the world make you evil.

Or something like that. I may have heard it on the radio somewhere. But I learned it in Greece.

Author’s Baba. All photographs by the author.

[netmaddy-blog]

Old Country Home

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Old Country Home

When we were just tiny toddlers, my older brother and I hopped into our parent’s old Nash automobile so excited about visiting our grandparents in the country. The drive from Corpus Christi to San Antonio brings back some of the most yearned for memories of my life; a simpler, less complicated time in life that I can go back to and take refuge.

My dad, always thinking ahead, had prepared child-sized, home-made “facilities” for use on our road trip. Since gas stations were few and far between, he handed me a small red Folger’s coffee can with a lid and my brother a small glass coke bottle. This little accommodation became a family tradition for road trips back in those days.

Mom packed a large brown grocery bag full of sandwiches and cookies wrapped in waxed paper along with a gallon of iced tea in a clear glass milk jug. Ice chests were still a decade away and so was the technology for plastic baggies. There was no air conditioner in the old Nash so we traveled with the windows open, heads and hands flailing in the breeze (seatbelts hadn’t been invented yet). Dad filled up at a “full-service gas station” for twenty-two cents a gallon (which is sadly extinct now, along with glass gallon milk jugs.)

“San-An-Toni, An-Toni-Oh; She hopped upon a pony, and rode away with Tony; If you see her please let me know, And I’ll meet you in San-Antonio!”

Mom taught us all the road songs she knew; i.e., “You Are my Sunshine,” “Hush Little Baby,” “America the Beautiful,” “Texas Our Texas,” “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” “Home on the Range,” and “San-An-Toni-O,” come directly to my mind. We came from a musical family where everyone sang, played instruments, danced and played records. No more songs? No problem! We counted wooden telephone poles and read billboard signs until we fell asleep.

After driving about forty-five to fifty miles per hour, on a two lane road, for what seemed like more hours than telephone poles, dad put his left arm out of the window to signal a turn and then slowly pulled onto a bumpy dirt road named Rockport Road. About five miles away was my grandparent’s small dairy farm-turned-cattle ranch. Dad always referred to his childhood home as “The Ranch.”

Rockport Road (later F.M. 1518) was a busy artery in the early part of the twentieth century; connecting many productive little farming communities in the Oak Island Community area to the city of San Antonio. Today, this road is South Loop 1604 West and the old ranch house is right off the highway, about five miles from Somerset on the south side of San Antonio. Later in life, I was to discover that our family was one of the oldest Texas families to settle here as far back as 1825.

“Souvenirs”

“They’re here!” shouted Grandmother. Coming quickly down the old stone steps, I noticed that her dress was covered with many tiny flowers. There is nothing like the smell of a country grandma, for she smelled like cookies and love. We pulled up to their modest dairy farm house that was on the edge of a hundred and twenty-six acres spread. Dad parked in the sandy soil and red dirt clay since there was no driveway. Their entire front yard was their driveway.

The first thing I noticed was a beautiful, circular rock garden that sparkled in the sunlight. We felt the texture and shapes of the stones in the round structure that glittered with samples of their vacations. (There used to be a time when it was not illegal to take a sample or two of Montana or Yellowstone National Park home with you.)

Several layers of rocks were stacked about three feet high with nothing to hold them together but each other. We discovered petrified wood, iron stone, colored chunks of glass, flat oval stones, really soft, glittery sandstone, open geodes with white crystals, small round pebbles, grey flat slabs and blue geodes. This collection represented ten years worth of “souvenirs” from Texas all the way up to their Montana land.

The tiny purple Verbena and the green and white Chaparral were in full bloom with millions of new flowers. They smelled like musky cologne and lay draped like curtains over the fence in their front yard. Years before, Grandmother had planted an orange tree next to the house to protect it from the cold in winter. Everyone told her that orange trees don’t grow in San Antonio, but as long as she was alive that orange tree produced sweet oranges.

Two purple and two pink Crepe Myrtle trees grew in the front yard alongside the Pomegranate trees that were imported from out of state. Grandmother gave mom some jars of her home made mustang jelly that she had made from the wild mustang grapes that grew on the property. She found wild mulberry bushes and raspberry bushes out on the land, but the wildlife usually quenched their appetite on them first.

If it grew on a vine, a bush, or a tree, she could make it grow, preserve it in mason jars and pass it on to friends, family and the community. She even collected fresh eggs every morning from the chicken coop and Granddad milked his own personal Jersey cow twice daily.

Their old farmhouse kitchen was a slanted, add-on cook porch with a roof that was a full foot shorter than the rest of the house. The oven didn’t cook evenly because it sat on a slope, but cookies were still wonderful in Grandmother’s oven! She had a real “ice box” with a chunk of ice in it for refrigeration and an old timey washing machine; the kind that squeezes the clothes through two rollers. After we settled in comfortably, Grandmother called my brother and me into the kitchen for some home made cookies and store bought vanilla ice cream that she had purchased from Henry Edward Butt (H.E.B. grocery store).

That evening, we snuggled into a soft double bed in what used to be “the girl’s room.” I traced the thick raised pink roses on Grandmother’s hand crocheted blankets with my fingers, as if trying to remember them. The bed was big enough for little children but I couldn’t imagine how my three aunts slept together on it. Life was simple back in the day that my three aunts were young, and they were happy there, for farm life was all they knew.

The girl’s room had a conservative, black chiffarobe for their dresses and a matching black dresser for their clothes. They also had an old fashioned vanity table to sit at with a mirror. It was peaceful in my aunts’ old bedroom. I wondered how many times they must have sat there and combed their hair, looking into the long mirror. Now I am looking into the same mirror and feeling like a country girl myself.

When Dad was born in 1928, Granddad built a long, porch-room at the back of the house for him. It had a wooden floor and a slanted tin roof that, like the kitchen, was also a foot lower than the rest of the house. Dad lived in that porch-room all the way through college, at Trinity University. Frugality was the operative word back then. But they always had money for the children’s college education, the girl’s singing engagements, and dad’s football games.

When it rained upon that old tin roof, it sounded like little bee bees falling from heaven. The grown-ups didn’t seem bothered by it because they were caught up in a rousing game of Canasta; a card game that took two decks and at least four people. This was Granddad’s favorite pastime and he played it like a champion.

Later on, as the rain stopped and the night grew still, the boisterous voices coming from the dining room turned into soft, muffled conversations of family visiting family. Grandmother was teaching my mother how to crochet raised roses on a granny square blanket just like my aunts had on their old bed. Later, I was to learn the blanket would be for me! All was well at my grandparent’s home.

Rag Rugs, Button Boxes and Granddad’s Marbles

Grandmother had a gift of creating something out of nothing, or very little. She was very imaginative and always kept her crochet needles and a sewing box near her rocking chair. In her leisure time, like an artist with her pallet full of paints, she made from scratch several dozen beautiful rag rugs out of the family’s old, worn out clothing.

My bare feet were never cold at her house because she had covered all of her wooden floors with colorful, knotted, floppy tie rag rugs. When a work shirt or dress became unusable, she took her large pair of sewing scissors and ripped the garments into thousands of equally measured ribbons. Using her iron, she pressed them into biased tape, and using her crochet needle as a hook, she tied the cloth into limitless, colorful, hand-made floppy tie rag rugs.

My brother spent hours playing with Granddad’s boyhood marbles that he had toted around since his own childhood. I was fascinated with Grandmother’s fancy button box and all of the buttons which were placed in it when a garment needed to be turned into a rug. I organized and color-coded them, playing for hours with her large button box. She had the most interesting and unique buttons I’ve ever seen.

Grandmother Beatrice was ahead of her time with recycling. She gave her floppy tie rag rugs away to friends and those “in need of a rug.” Once, she made a long, narrow, white floppy tie rag rug that flowed down the hallway of her favorite niece, Jane McCabe’s hallway, in her lovely home on the north side of San Antonio. Jane was formerly a Parker, like Grandmother, and came from our wealthy Detroit, Michigan relatives who migrated to San Antonio in the early thirties.

Grandmother gracefully wove dark green ties to make the leaves, red ties to make the cherries into the white background. Jane McCabe proudly displayed her Aunt Beatrice’s long cherry rag rug in her large hallway for twenty-five years, until the old rug needed to reitre. It was quite the envy of all of her neighbors and a conversation piece at her bridge parties, too!

King Snakes and Doodle Bugs

My cousin Stevie, who was just a year and a half younger than me, knew all about the difference between rattle snakes and King snakes. “The rattle snake will kill you, but the King snake is harmless and kills the bad snakes” he said.

He also taught me, ever so gently, how to tap a tiny little grain of sand into a Doodle Bug funnel in the barn next to the chicken coop. A Doodle Bug is a black quarter-inch long hard shelled bug with about a hundred tiny legs at the base of its armor.

These little sand creatures dug their funnels with all those little feet in order to bury themselves beneath the cool sand during the day. We tapped one or two grains of sand in their “little tornadoes” in order to confirm if there really was a Doodle Bug inside the funnel or not. If he was home, the Doodle Bug would fast and furiously kick out the sand with his many legs. When in sight, we quickly scooped him up and let him walk on our hands. We meant no malice to nature’s little tornado diggers and always returned them back to the sand, wherein they would immediately begin to feverishly kick sand up in the air and disappear.

My brother and I returned to “The Ranch” several times. Our grandparent’s house even became a refuge during the evacuation of Corpus Christi when Hurricane Carla came ashore. Today, my brother lives about an eighth of a mile from the old homestead in his own “Ranch.”

In 2003, I was actually able to go back to “The Ranch” over fifty years later, to live with my eighty-eight year old aunt Bebe. She had inherited her parent’s old homestead and moved back there after her retirement from teaching. It was through coming back here that I was able to find my roots and remembered that uncomplicated, simple childhood that I had experienced so many years ago.