Six Years & A Few Mementos

Even after six years I refuse to let anything go.  Of course I had to let some things go: clothes I would never wear, furniture I would never use, dishes that wouldn't fit in my cabinets.  But the pictures, a charm bracelet, a sampling of her rabbit collection - I display these things with the care of a museum curator, surrounding myself with a reminder in every corner so that I insure I never start to forget.  Sometimes I worry I started a long time ago. 

This is a little jar from Turkey.  It reminds me of the "urn" we used at the memorial.  We hadn't bought one, as it didn't make since considering her ashes would be scattered.  When we realized the minister would be holding the memorial over a cardboard box, I was sent with very supportive friends to purchase an urn for my mother.  I refused to pick one, couldn't pick one, and finally, with more supportive coercion, settled on a jar from Pier One that looked very similar to this one.  I don't know where that is now.

I bought the Ganesh statue to put by her bed at the hospital when I learned he can symbolize protection.  I found her teacher snap shot at my grandmother's house recently and stuck it in my cell phone cover, and now I can't bring myself to take it out.  Why should I?

She bought this fabric to be my curtains because I've always loved moon and star prints.  They've been my curtains in every room I've lived in since.

I bought the yellow cow for her in Chicago when the painted cows were on display.  The antique little pig holds milk and in elementary school, she would set it out beside my cereal in the morning.

In every house we lived in she hung these two things on the refrigerator.  Now I do it.

We made little bumblebees with almond wings from a recipe in this book, as well as other treats.

I was terrified of losing this note so I made sure I never will.  I'm ok now, and I have been for a while.  But still, I can't believe it's been six years since I last talked to her.  I can't believe she never looks older when I remember her.  A lot of times I worry I'm going to die before 45 too and I wonder how many of my actions have been dictated by that fear.  It's one of the many things I'm trying to relinquish. 

Worth Mentioning

From Yes&Yes: True Story: My Mom Died When I Was 19

"This is one of many interviews that make up the True Life series, in which we learn about amazing, intriguing people and the things that they've experienced. This is the story of Tyler, whose mom died of ovarian cancer while Tyler was a sophomore in college."

"Shopping for black clothes for the funeral was really weird. One of my sisters and I went to Forever 21, and we had to flick through the racks of cheerful, colorful stuff to find the few black items they had. What are you supposed to say when the salesperson asks you if you’re looking for anything in particular? It was bizarre."

My dad took me to Dillards.  When he came up to Arkansas from Texas he hadn't brought a suit with him because he refused to believe he would have to go to a funeral.  He bought a pin stripe suit.  I got a black and white floral skirt.  I wanted a pink one.  I point blank told the sales lady my mom died four hours ago.

"The funeral was so surreal. I’m really emotionally guarded, so the funeral was the first time I had ever cried in front of people that weren’t my parents or sisters. It was liberating, in a way. The funeral itself went… well? I don’t know if that’s the right word."

I didn't cry at the funeral.  They made us walk in after everyone else down the chapel's center aisle and everyone was staring.  I actually felt like I was getting married.  We'd scattered the ashes before the service and no one wanted to get up and tell stories because we wouldn't have made it through two sentences.  In retrospect I wish I could have been stronger about that.  My defense was to be a stone in the pew.

"I also dream about her all the time. Sometimes, in the dream, I know she died, but other times it’s like she never got sick."

I used to have the most terrible dreams where she had died, but came back to life and didn't know she'd been sick or died, and everyone else had moved on, or she and my dad would want a divorce.  Or worse, she'd be dying physically but was still alive, and everything about her was falling apart.  I think I've only had one good dream about her, and I can't even remember it.  


"For people with a death in their own families, you should know that there is no right way to grieve. Don’t look to anyone else for how you’re supposed to feel or what you’re supposed to do."

Agreed.

Florence and the Machine

A Cardinal Sin...

Trying to travel down closed roads for some sort of inspiration.  Best to look outward, no?

It's terrible to sit down, look at a blank screen, and think, "my mind doesn't work the way it used to.  It doesn't see things anymore."  I've been slowly rereading my old old Live Journal to help me fall back into the routine of really writing things down like I used to.  The problem with this?  The invocation of self-indulgent memories, the conflict of wanting to have a mindset I used to have without being who I used to be.  Is that possible?  Why does it feel like everything now is about arriving at meetings on time and having enough money to pay the electric bill on time?  Why is there a giant pile of receipts beside me?  Why am I so stuck that it necessitates looking backward at my writing scribbles rather than trying to progress forward?

I think I've had enough for tonight.  I may need to break something to validate this moment, sort of like a Jewish cup smashing?  Maybe?

I found this quote in an entry, I don't even know what this song used to mean to me.





I think the bottom line here, the unspoken thing, that this silly Live Journal, that all of my silly diaries validate, is that I used to be sad.  Sad like a lot of teenagers are sad, but also really sad.  I worry that's offensive to some people.  It shouldn't be.  And I don't ever want to go back to that place again.  It simply bothers me that my eyes seem to see less now than they did then.  I'm not sure when I closed them, if I even did, or why every muscle in my body always feels tight as though I am, actually, squeezing myself shut.  What would happen if I weren't?

Time to stop for the night, as I'm not even sure what story I'm looking for, and I'd like to end it on this:


Friday, September 5th, 2003 
10:35 am - she was losing her mind LONG before the meds began...  

I love my mom //

HomeInTheHills: I'd prefer you not walk alone after dark - don't forget, the nuts are everywhere!
summer long ago: even in our own family
 HomeInTheHills: I prefer to think of us as "interesting" and " amusing"
summer long ago:aha...they go hand in hand
HomeInTheHills: your puppies would say hello, but they are all snoring
summer long ago: thats puppyspeak for hello
HomeInTheHills: well, then, a great BIG hello from the 3 stooges

Remembrance of Things Passed: Prescott, Little Rock

I drove to Little Rock on Wednesday, getting in at 11:30PM, to attend my great-grandma Grady Faye's funeral on Thursday morning.  To me and my cousins, she was Grady Faydie. Just like I didn't know she was my step-great-grandma until college, I also didn't know that Grady Faye was her real name, I thought it was her grandma name, (we like to make up our own, my grandmother is Gramadear).  The funeral was in Prescott, the small town where my grandmother was born and raised.  She said it used to be thriving when the railroad brought it lots of people and business, but the highway has since diverted both commerce and visitors.  Compared to how it used to be, she said it's practically in decay.  Seeing historic main streets and store fronts abandoned and falling into disrepair, as well as hundred year old houses that are begging for new paint, roofs, foundation work... is a sad testament to how architectural history is often treated.

My Grady Fadie knew something about style, though.  She went out in a pink casket, with pink roses, wearing a pink suit with hand-sewn pink sequins and beads on the collar and cuffs.  If I wasn't terrified of caskets over cremation, I'd do the same thing.

Cremation is an odd thing, though.  My mother was cremated, and it has left me with a sort of "lost" feeling as to where to "visit" her, as there's no real grave.  There's the place where the ashes were scattered, and a shared plaque, but it's not really the same.

Gradie Fadie is being buried beside her first husband.  A few hops up, my blood great-grandfather and great-grandmother are buried side by side: August and Thelma.  I never met either of them, but I have great-grandma Thelma's Prescott High School class ring, a perfect fit.  The date has rubbed off the front except for a barely visible "19," but her maiden initials are still clearly visible inside the band: T.P.H.

I also have my grandmother's Prescott High School class ring, and my mother's Parkview High School ring.  It makes me regret not getting my own class ring, as it will leave a gap in the collection.

This was Grady Fadie's house, and sadly, I will probably never see it again.  She moved in when she married my great-grandfather August, and my grandmother was born in the Prescott hospital and raised here until she left for the University of Arkansas and married my grandfather.  She said the back den used to be a screened in sleeping porch for hot, Arkansas summer nights, and several of the trees surrounding the house are pecan trees.  Grady Fadie used to give me ziplock bags full of the pecans that fell to the ground.  The house is ninety years old.

After the funeral, we skipped the typical deli tray luncheon and went to Maxine's Diner.  I had to get fried okra, because aside from loving it, Grady Fadie used to make it for me.  My Aunt Carol and I split this gigantic piece of coconut cream pie.  She had to hold it up to her face for a size comparison.

Before leaving my grandmother's house in Little Rock, (my grandfather is still alive, but he's in a nursing home), I pulled this dress out of the closet in my mom's old room.  My grandmother made it for her to go to a formal dance when she was in high school, and the lace details were made by great-grandma Thelma.  For some reason, this dress has always fit me, even though my mom's wedding dress most certainly did NOT when I tried it on back when I was engaged.  I love it, and Austin is a city in which I could actually wear this, where as I would feel people were looking at me funny if I wore it in Little Rock.  My grandmother is going to shorten the skirt so it hits at my knee, and I can't wait to wear it.

I'm now back in Texas, but am staying over night at my dad's house in Copperas Cove. 

This is only the second time I have been back in Little Rock since I moved.  Little Rock has the affect on me, where I have a memory tucked into every corner and crevice of it's cityscape, so that I feel as though I own it.  I can tell you how everything looked twenty years ago from personal memory, as well as up to sixty years ago from family stories.  I spent time with friends, with Michael, with family, in what feels like every building, parking lot, street light... it makes everything feel as though it is mine, and makes me unafraid of any space. 

When Lennon and I go to Dallas, he says the same thing about it and Grand Prairie.  He drives down the streets wide-eyed and relaying stories about every inch of street he's traveled.  I suppose I do the same thing in Little Rock. 

Do you have a town or place like that?

I Don't Think This Can Be Topped

After my mom was too sick to keep teaching elementary school, she started volunteering at the Metroplex Hospital in Killeen's gift shop.  She brought home lots of pretty greeting cards, nifty pens and cool mobiles that looked like a strand of rainbow DNA.

My dad and step-mom recently moved and have been trying to clear out lots of furniture, which requires a clean sweep of every drawer, nook, and cubby hole.  Lennon and I went to their house to watch the superbowl, and my step-mom said she had something to give me.  She pulled out this card and at first I thought it would be money or a gift card inside.

She handed it to me and said she'd found it in a piece of furniture that was my mom and dad's, that no one could identify its origins, and it seems obvious that my mom had brought it home from the gift shop. 

The outside says "Happy Birthday Daughter," and the inside:

Six years after she died, I got a birthday card from my mom. 

I cried - are there words?  My step-mom cried too.  I can't think of any thing in the world I would rather have received.  I still can't get over it.



Before going home to Cove, I did hit up Buffalo Exchange to spend my birthday money.  While not nearly as exciting as above, I found some items I'm quite proud of:

Pink Puma tennis, faux-snake skin peep-toe sling-back booties, turquoise flats, and three dresses, one by Susana Monaco, who I love.  If only it weren't so cold this week - all I want to do is bundle up in matronly sweaters and water-proof boat shoes.

Sunday may have been gloomy, but that didn't put a damper on my birthday weekend!  Ok, I know, I make terrible jokes... and sometimes I put on clothes just because I was compelled to wear a certain item.  Like this skirt; it spoke to me from the closet and said it was lonely and in want of wear. 


Skirt: Charlotte Rouse
Shoes: Converse All Star (Target)
Tights: Target
Hippie t-shirt: Journey's
Long sleeve t-shirt: Kohls
Crystal strawberry necklace: mom's

I'm smiling here and this was before I even got the card.  It was a very smile-filled weekend.  Thank you to everyone who helped me celebrate!  I plan to post embarrassing dance club photos soon :)

My chipotle chocolate cake didn't turn out shabby, either, but it was certainly spicy!  I'll also post the recipe and photos soon, since Grant asked so nicely :) :)      < more smiles!

Nuclear Salsa!

When I left Naval ROTC at the George Washington University and moved back to Fayetteville to attend the University of Arkansas, I missed out on a huge component of starting university as a freshman: meeting people.  Most of my high school friends were gone at out of state universities, I did all of the freshman orientation get-to-know-your-neighbor shenanigans at GW, (and made some of the best friends of my life - I love you Mitchell Sixers!), and worst, I committed the cardinal sin of transfer student life: I moved into an apartment instead of a dorm, even though I was only a sophomore.  Being painfully shy, (more so then), I went through the next three years without knowing scores of people... more like five people, with close friends passing through town on holidays to keep my social candle barely aflame. 

In retrospect, I wouldn't have had my college years any other way for one main reason and one sub reason.  While Lennon had quite the crazy college experience, and sometimes makes me envious of his stories of dorm parties, wild exploits, etc., I could not change anything about how my low-key, knitting to Billy Holiday CD's and shopping at the organic Co-op because my parents still paid my credit card bill and staying in weekends experience played itself out, because if it had been different I wouldn't have been with my mom the last year she was alive.  She got so sick she had to leave the house in Texas to stay with my aunt and her family in Fayetteville, which meant I got to see my momma on a near-daily basis.  If she'd been in Killeen, TX, still, or I'd been at George Washington or any other school, I would have maybe seen her twice that year - she died in May.

So that's the huge reason I don't regret my quiet college years.  The secondary reason is that I learned how much I love to cook and make everything from scratch.  The only thing that stands in my way most of the time, is, well, time.  On my 20th birthday I didn't have anywhere to go so I stayed home, watched a movie, and made myself green Thai curry, cutting up every vegetable and using a cookbook I had bought the previous summer while living with Joanie & Julia (my girls!) on Martha's Vineyard and working at the Bunch of Grapes bookstore. 

Ok, all of this back story to say, what exactly?  To talk about making salsa from scratch.  Without a recipe.  So am I going to sell these instructions as the world's best salsa recipe?  Heck no, I confused serrano peppers with poblano peppers at the grocery store, I didn't peel and seed the tomatoes, and I listened to Lennon (BAD IDEA) and put in two jalapenos and burned the crap out of my mouth. 

But we made it together, it was fun, and after sitting in the fridge overnight, it came out spicy and tasty.  Next time, though: no poblano.  Expect this to be the first of a series of salsa posts, I'm a tad obsessed with the stuff, as well as recipe tweaking.

Nuclear Salsa: Take One

Ingredients:

Roma tomatoes

Jalapenos

Green onion

Poblano pepper (don't use it!)

Cilantro

Garlic

Chop everything into little bits!  The seeds in the jalapeno make it extra hot.

It's time for a quiz!  Amanda is doing the following:

        a) taking the world's most flattering picture
        b) wearing a poblano pepper stem as a hat
        c) doing my best Alton Brown impression complete with sea salt
        d) all of the above

Tricky, eh?  If you need the answer, you can email me at: dishevelledstars@gmail.com, but that's cheating!  Remember integrity is important when making salsa.

Blenders are also important.  Put everything in one.  A food processor also works.

Oh, oh!  It's quiz time again!  Lennon is:

      a) competing with Amanda for world's most flattering picture

      b) drinking the glass of red wine beside the giant glass of beer

      c) about to blend together all salsa ingredients before putting it on chips and in a mason jar

      d) answers "a" and "c" only

Again, feel free to email me for hints.

So while this salsa was a bit pulpy, it was certainly good!  Be prepared to see it make an appearance in a few more recipes I have waiting in que for an appearance on this blog.

Thankful

On Black Friday, Thanksgiving, every day, I am thankful...

for families that are and are not my own.  squishy couches.  the twenty years I knew my mom.  my dad.  my step-family.  my grandparents.  the grandfather I never met who looks like my dad.  boyfriends.  ex-boyfriends.  all the ways I realize just how much like my parents I am.  car trips.  Bella.  friends in Atlanta.  in Boston.  in Little Rock.  in DC.  in Austin.  etc.  my job.  bar-b-que sauce.  the calluses on my fingers.  neutral milk hotel.  green bean casserole.  carpets.  ceiling fans.  skirts.  movies with happy endings.  bras with wires that don't stab me.  wireless internet.  holidays.  book stores.  lamps.  room mates.  acoustic covers.  textured paint.  sperry's.  all things past & the future.

I have been and will be hopping between Copperas Cove and Dallas until Sunday, using borrowed wireless on other people's computers.  But I hope everyone's weekend is cozy and filled with people and things worth loving, even if they aren't physically present.

In that respect, I wanted to learn to play the song below on guitar, because after my mom died, it took on a new meaning for me, and one time I played it and realized I'd started crying.  Lame, maybe, but true.  My playing was not so stellar, so I skipped the personal cover.  Regardless, for anyone who has to be apart from someone they love - for whatever reason - death, distance, serving in Iraq like Doug, about to go to Iraq like Hal, estranged - here's a song for you.

Girl Adores Globe

I'm very lucky. I come from a family that adores history, antiques, and has no fear scouring dust, rust, and the occasional bug to find something special. My grandmother owned an antique store in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, before she died, and most of my early memories are of watching adults go nuts at auctions over broken pieces of jewelry and furniture missing hinges and knobs and other unsightly blemishes. My dad restored the pieces we brought home as a hobby, specifically antique rifles and clocks, so having something new in our house was a novel and exciting concept. I remember being mad when I told my parents I wanted a desk, and the first thing they got me was a lady's writing table from the 1800's, when all I wanted was a white Pottery Barn style computer desk like all my friends had. My parents were much wiser than I gave them credit for.

So when I, (and probably a lot of other people), hear that Keith Johnson, a buyer for Anthropologie, has gotten a show chronicling his travels around the world to buy dusty antiques for an over priced catalogue, respectively called Man Shops Globe, I turn a little green, and a little red. Salon.com quickly followed up with an article titled "Overpriced Antiques for Anxious Yuppies," citing the upper middle class's obsession with rustic objects d'art as a quest for meaning in an otherwise cardboard boxed, pre-packaged, quick-fix world. While the criticism of a trend is fair enough, it seems weak to poke at people who are "existentially wobbly" and long for something meaningful, even if that something turns out to be an ottoman from the former Ottoman empire, or a blown glass lamp from Tunisia.

Anthropologie also owns Urban Outfitters, the store I did not discover until my freshman year at college in Washington, DC. This is when I discovered that the curly-cued wrought iron adornments and faded fabrics my parents had so adored were being mass produced with a hipper edge, and I liked it. Around ten years old I told my parents I'd never buy anything that wasn't new, because old stuff was creepy and dirty, so I suppose my infatuation with the Urban Outfitters apartment section was the beginning of my regression from those words - a compromise between new and dingy.

I think the entire marketing strategy of stores like Urban Outfitters is to make everything look like a patch work quilt sewn together with pretty, textured fabrics. Nothing really matches, but that's ok.

The thing with purchasing from a catalogue that the Salon article railed against, and which I fully agree with, is that objects such as the mirror above from anthropologie.com and listed for $500.00, are a ridiculous way to go about acquiring unique pieces. Part of the value of being a collector of antiques and art is doing the scouring and the searching yourself, and knowing exactly where the piece came from, and if it's a new handicraft from an exotic location, then getting to experience where it came from and meet the person who made it. As far as the mirror above, I could definitely smash a few old $5 throw away frames and glue them onto a new one. Someone write me a check!

Of course, being a quick-fix protege of the times, I get frustrated not knowing the outcome of things, so part of the allure of places like Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters is that the final product is already done for you. Collecting takes time and patience, and it's easier to order part of a whole - such as a sofa from a picture of a completed room - with the final design in mind. This is something I need to work on - letting go of the desire to know the ending. None the less, I want that scarf. And that hat. And that jacket. If I got that $500 check, it might cover all three pieces.

Of course, for the poorer people amongst us, including myself, there was always Target's Global Bazaar, which I again agree with the Salon article when it describes these objects as focuses of resentment when they pale in comparison to legit antiques and handicrafts after coming out of the shopping bag. Nonetheless, I will always love Target.

Here, Keith Johnson examines carpets in a Turkish carpet store, another activity that I loathed my ninth grade year as my parents looked at unrolled carpet after unrolled carpet in stores across the country. Living in Izmir, we get to travel frequently around Turkey, so I maintain that, despite my annoyance at the time, I'm a lucky girl. And as beautiful as some of the pieces he selects here may be, they still will never hold the relevance that a carpet my mother picked out from the store in Izmir where she had tea every week with the shop keeper while I petted the almost-stray German Sheppard outside does; one of many pieces that still make me think of her when she was alive and the wonderful year my family spent together in Izmir. These are the things that make an object powerful. Sorry, Anthropologie. It's just not the same.

Late Mother's Day Posting

from PostSecret.com

e. e. cummings:

You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.So am I.

Moving Up

Despite arranging for movers who have a four hour minimum for payment, Michael and I spent the evening packing boxes with books and dishes to deliver to the carriage house. Michael is very methodical and measured every piece of furniture and the wall space between windows, then drew a diagram of each room to plot out where everything will go. I would never do this. I don't even know how to use a ruler. I love that he is the opposite of me in this way.

April is National Poetry Month, and I've noticed that on facebook, many people are writing a poem a day and posting them in their notes. I haven't had two seconds to sit down, until now, but I'd like to share in the NPM spirit, so here is a poem I started writing after moving my mom's things out of my parent's old house in Texas.

this is called: unloading your clothes at the goodwill.

I handed your shirts in stacks,

the slight warmth of your body
still clinging to pilled fleece and fibers.
we cleaned your closet out in one fatal blow –
ordaining the racks of a thrift store with
designer jackets and heels,
cracked leather running shoes,
your black pants with the strawberry print.
It feels like I'm stealing from you,
giving your clothes to the poor.
Creating space between each of dad's polos,
an entire bar devoted to hangers.
I look for you in your bedroom behind the door,
speak to the wire mouths of empty hangers,
the carpeted floor where your bare feet
stood to pick out a shirt every day.
They only tell me you
don't live here anymore.

Journal scan, July 2004

March 14, 1982

Happy anniversary, mom & dad. If I could subtract properly, I'd figure up how many years it would have been. I suppose it is inappropriate to call dad and tell him "happy anniversary" today, since it's been five years now, but I'll still think it for the both of you.

Susan & Jann @ our last house in Texas, circa 2003