memories – Page 106 – beckycochrane.com

Legacy Writing 365:270

Since I mentioned the Renaissance Festival in Tuesday’s post about “dragon eggs,” I thought I’d share another memory of a different year when we went to the Renaissance Festival. We’ve gone with Lynne several times. One year Tom and I went and tried to meet up with Amy and Richard, but we never seemed to be in the same place at the same time. Then in 2008, when Debby was here on a visit in late fall–after a hard year emotionally for all of us–we decided the Renaissance Festival would be a fun diversion. So Tom, Debby, Lindsey, Rhonda, and I took off on a gorgeous, sunny Sunday to enjoy the costumes, the jousting, the corn on the cob, and lots of people watching and crystal shopping.

It was exactly the kind of relaxing day we hoped for, and I remember at one point, when everyone was winding down, that I hurried up a hill to see what new event was about to start. And it struck me that I was moving pain free. For an entire year, I’d struggled with nerve and muscle pain caused by a herniated disc and two fractured vertebrae. I’d gone to physical therapy, learned a lot of new ways to move and to develop core strength, and taken lots of medication. The pain had been such a constant that I had to stop letting it dominate my life. I guess the improvement was so gradual that I didn’t know it was really gone until I realized that while everyone else was thinking it was time to leave, my body was all, LET’S GO HAVE MORE FUN!

Four years later, when I get an occasional backache, I’m grateful all over again for the cessation of that pain. Chronic pain can make you CRAZY. And I remember that with all the help from friends and family, the compassion, and the medical care I received, it was Jeff F who took the time to give me good information and advice about how to stop the pain from making me live a life of fear. I will always be grateful to him for that.

So that was a great day. Also: FOX!

For Helen: Baby Dragon

In comments to Monday’s post, Helen told me about a geode she has that she’s never cracked. I told her about mine, and she wanted photos.

One year at the Renaissance Festival, we happened upon a table of Dragon Eggs! For a modest price, you could buy your own Dragon Egg, get it cracked open, and see what treasure was inside.

Here’s the Dragon Egg that Tom and I picked.

And here’s our Baby Dragon who was waiting inside.

He has wings! We couldn’t be prouder.

Legacy Writing 365:269

The last place my mother lived before she went to hospice was a twenty-four-hour-a-day care home. We had toured and checked out all kinds of facilities, nursing homes, and full-care assisted living before deciding on this place. It was small and not at all institutional. It wasn’t perfect. But somehow I felt like she’d be okay there. I went almost every day to visit her. Once I had to miss a couple of days and I got a scorching phone call from her. But it had been her choice to go into a full-time care facility. What her kids wanted was to rent an apartment near The Compound. My sister–who is a hospice nurse–was going to take family medical leave and stay with Mother full time until the end. But Mother was adamant that she didn’t want the couple who owned the apartment (they lived on the top floor) to have a sick person living there, and she really didn’t want them to have someone die there. And though she could get annoyed with her kids if she felt we weren’t giving her the right amount of attention, she never wanted to live with any of us. Every time she tried that, she couldn’t get out fast enough. She was an odd mixture of independence and need, and it could be challenging to figure out what she wanted from us at any given time.

Looking back, it’s difficult to know if she adjusted well to the care home, resigned herself to enduring it, or simply had a lot of occasions when she was unaware of where she was or who we were. Not long after she was settled in there, Debby arrived in Houston. We visited Mother and then returned to The Compound to eat and rest. It was probably around nine p.m. when Debby said, “Let’s go back. I just need to know she’s okay.” So we drove back to the home, but Mother wasn’t in her bedroom. We found her sitting on the living room couch with one of the staff. Apparently she’d had a dream or some kind of episode, because she’d been agitated. Instead of trying to make her stay in bed, the aide got her a glass of milk and some Oreos and sat with her, listening to Mother tell a rambling tale that she continued after Debby and I arrived. We had no idea what she was talking about, but occasionally in her narrative, she’d raise her hand and say that she’d told someone, “I’m going to slap the shit out of you!” She was cracking us all up.

Tonight, going through photos, I found an old one of Debby. I think she’ll totally agree after she sees it that it could be titled, “I’m going to slap the shit out of you.” SAME facial expression and gesture, Debby!

Legacy Writing 365:267

I was watching the Emmy awards tonight and thinking about trophies. I believe I have one somewhere, for nothing special. But I guess because trophies were on my mind, these photos caught my eye as I was looking through one of my mother’s photo albums.

Gina and Sarah with trophies they got for playing T-Ball. I never got to see them play, but my parents did, and they loved it! I think they saw Daniel, Josh, and the twins play one sport or another as kids. I’m sure I have photos of all of them, including Aaron, in their uniforms.

I think my nieces look utterly adorable here as Cubs. I’m including a second photo for their Aunt Terri to see, because if I’m not mistaken, this could be a Fido sighting. If that really is Daniel’s old horse Fido, we have now traced him as far as Kentucky. Maybe he ended up on one of the beautiful horse farms outside Lexington and enjoyed a long and happy retirement.

Legacy Writing 365:266

When Amy, Tom, and I went to Washington, D.C., in 1996 as volunteers and panelmakers for the AIDS Quilt exhibit, we also took the opportunity to see a lot of the capital’s sites and visit art museums. I think the first museum we went to on that trip was the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden which we all enjoyed very much. I have a lot of photos from there; here’s one of Amy standing next to Clyfford Still’s 1950-M No.1.

We also went together to the Corcoran Gallery of Art. I saw so many great paintings and sculptures that my head was reeling from it all, but I still couldn’t wait to go to the National Gallery of Art because I knew they had a lot of Mark Rothko’s works. If you are a frequenter of museums, however, you’ve probably had the sad experience I did. Permanent works are often in storage because of temporary installations, or maybe the collections are on loan. My Rothkos were nowhere to be seen.

Amy bought me a few postcards of the works that I should have been seeing, and those are still framed and hanging in my office today. She also secretly bought something in the gift shop to be shipped to her. When it came, she had it framed. And then on Christmas–voila! A gift for me that managed to pull together the love Steve R and I shared for Rothko, my friendship with Amy, and all the experiences of that trip to Washington and our AIDS/HIV awareness and activism. I look at it every single day in my living room.

As for all those other paintings I didn’t get to see on that trip, a few years ago Tom gave me this Rothko retrospective published in 1998 by Jeffrey S. Weiss, John Gage, the National Gallery of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. It’s HUGE and has over a hundred illustrations of Rothko’s paintings. Nothing can replace seeing art in person, but this volume’s large reproductions remind me why Mark Rothko’s paintings always offer me new perspectives and nourish my soul.

Legacy Writing 365:265

It’s kind of funny what people think it’s okay to ask you. I guess in the New Century of There Is No Privacy, strangers think it’s appropriate to respond to, “I don’t drink” with “Are you an alcoholic?” Geez. The reason I don’t drink is neither for health nor moral reasons. Alcohol just started giving me headaches whenever I drank it. Though for a time, I’d occasionally put something in my coffee on a winter’s eve, it wasn’t really a big sacrifice just to stop drinking. I don’t have a bad history with drinking–I mean, I went away to college, of course I have bar stories–and I’ve seen alcohol abuse destroy or at least temporarily hijack some lives, but it’s something I rarely have a reason to think about.

I didn’t grow up in one of those 1960s TV homes where Mom and Dad had cocktails in the evenings, with shakers and jiggers and strainers and ice buckets and shot glasses. My parents both drank beer, especially after they worked hard in the yard. I’ve heard that when my father was with the guys, he could throw a few back, but I never saw that side of him. I did see my mother get a little buzzed from time to time, but she could do that after one drink, and I suspect most of her buzz was put on so she could be the life of the party. She LOVED that. She had some beautiful crystal decanters–filled with colored water. I think that was a 60s thing, too.

Then there’s wine. Wine connoisseurs should just stop here, because I’m about to recount what will be, for you, tales of the bottom shelf, or as one online sommelier said, “the scariest wines ever.”

I love grapes. Don’t these look all dewy and tasty?

And I remember, from my youth, eating Muscadines right off the vine. I think my parents and some of their friends and maybe my uncle even tried to ferment their own Muscadine wine. That could be one of those stories I’ve invented; I don’t know. But I do remember the first time I tasted wine.

My Uncle Gerald occasionally had a glass of Mogen David. I adored him, and I’d never seen wine before, so I asked if I could taste it. I have no idea what age I was–maybe twelve? He exchanged a glance with my mother, handed me his glass, and I took a sip. Of course, I loved it. It’s a very sweet dessert wine and my palate was geared toward Kool-Aid. From then on, I was always allowed one sip from his glass on the rare occasion that he poured one.

Here’s Uncle Gerald, sans wine but with a cigarette. I actually remember what he smoked: Kent. And I remember their jingle, part of which is: Happiness is the taste of Kent–great taste, fine tobacco–that’s what happiness is. Huh. Maybe they were right to take those ads off the air because of us impressionable children.

The next wine I drank was Lynne’s fault. She got a wine bottle from her cousin that had been autographed by teen idol Mark Lindsay. The wine was Mateus Rosé, and she talked her parents into buying a bottle for us. The taste was vile to this Kool-Aid drinker. Of course, I pretended I loved it. Peer pressure at its finest!

Then it was prom time, Boone’s Farm. etc. etc. Everyone of a certain age (35) has memories of Annie Green Springs and Strawberry Hill.

For a time, my parents bought a wine that was white and very sweet. It’s possible it was Manischewitz Cream White Concord. It was their “we’re having people over” wine.

Then came the 1980s and the onslaught of the blush wines. We’re not holding wine here–I’m sure that’s apple juice!–but Kathy and I were known to have a glass of White Zinfandel after a day at work. Or a day at whatever.

Does this photo look all blurry to you? Probably whoever took it was drinking apple juice, too.

Legacy Writing 365:264

When I was returning the photos of Margot and Guinness from yesterday’s post to their photo album, I idly continued to look through it. It’s one of the albums with photos from 2001. I came to a page with a card that Timmy sent me, and he said it was okay if I shared it. It was postmarked September 5, 2001. Reading it, I’m sure what prompted Timmy to send it was that we became friends in September 1997.

My dearest Becky,
Just taking a break at work to write on one of the cards I bought in Provincetown. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be relaxed. Can you believe that four years have gone by so quickly? And what fantastic years they’ve been. I just want you to know what you mean to me, how dear our friendship is to me. I feel honored to have shared life on this planet with you. All right, enough of that emotional stuff. Here are the sunflowers on our roof–please disregard the dying palm in the background– Love you much, Timothy

I went to Timmy’s Manhattan apartment once. I remember the narrow, steep stairs that led to the rooftop garden. Like Timmy, Tim just bounded up and down those stairs as if they were nothing. I, on the other hand, have taken two hard falls down stairs, one that broke my arm. I’m cautious. Overly so. It’s a lack of confidence in my own balance. Sometimes, I am an old woman. So when I came down those stairs, I said, “You know, I’m just gonna sit and scoot down these stairs on my butt. DON’T WATCH.” And the boys didn’t make fun of me, just another of a million reasons why I love them. When they went up again later, probably to smoke, I said, “No, thanks! I’ll just sit down here and remember the view.”

In Timmy’s Polaroid, I can see the latticework that encloses his rooftop garden. A building of about the same height close by, and a residential high-rise in the distance. Clear skies. Timmy’s sky.

Six days after that card was mailed, Timmy walked to work. He knew a plane had hit the first tower, but he followed his routine. When he arrived–about six blocks from the World Trade Center site, he realized some of his coworkers were freaking out, unsure whether they should be there or not. They decided to close and go home. He walked to his apartment. He and Jean-Marc stood on the street and looked south. Jean-Marc, as always, had his camera. I don’t know how many photos J-M took; if I extrapolate information from some of the poetry Timmy has sent me (it’s always risky to assume a voice in any piece of writing is the same as its author’s), there is this:

…you have brought light to the darkest hour
(this of course, no ordinary event)
somehow capturing a high spirit
while the world crumbled one morning
you caught the immediate reaction of everyone running to help, to comfort…

Timmy e-mailed this photo; he titled it “Mirror.” J-M caught a stranger’s reflection in a rearview mirror as they all stared toward the towers.

Photo copyright Jean-Marc Chazy, all rights reserved.

While they watched, the first tower fell, and people, many of them in business suits, began emerging from the smoke, covered in ash and dust. Timmy told me the rest of that day is a blank.

Today, talking to him on the phone, I asked, “Jean-Marc’s photo: Was that taken with a cell phone?” “His camera,” Timmy answered and reminded me that in 2001, we weren’t all armed with smart phones or even cell phones able to take photos.

In another phone conversation recently, this one with Jim and Bill, Bill spoke of how important it is for people who are gifted with words to record that time. He worried that because people now do capture everything with their cell phones then put it online before moving to the next story, we are forgetting the measured, reflective nature of writing our history.

Legacy Writing 365:263

People who’ve met my dogs as they’ve gotten older have no idea how much they used to play as youngsters. I do have some photographic proof from their early years with us. We’d adopted Margot in the fall of 2000 after we lost Pete and Stevie in August of that year. We hadn’t planned to get another dog so quickly, but not only was I going crazy when I worked at home in a silent house, but our friend Denece sent the link to Margot on a rescue site, we went to meet her, and the rest is history.

We had to travel a lot that fall, which meant boarding for Margot, but she was a good girl and never held it against us. Then in January, Lynne told me about a friend who’d rescued a dog from a street in her neighborhood. Aimee had a Jack Russell, Bandit, who was not amused about a second dog in the house, so Lynne, knowing we were eventually going to get Margot a companion, asked if we’d take a look at this stray. We took Margot with us, and while Bandit repeatedly jumped several feet off the floor to see TWO dog invaders to her backyard through a window in the door, Margot and this dog got acquainted. Actually, I should say that Margot and this dog greeted each other like long-lost sisters, because their bond was immediate and forever from the first moment they met.

So Guinness came home with us, and in all their years together, they’ve exchanged harsh words only once, and that was when Guinness dashed across the bed and trampled Margot, who was sleeping under the covers. They played together, got in trouble together (it was two years before I could stop buying new bedding on a regular basis because of two little chewers), and Margot trained Guinness to walk on a leash, to go in and out of the crate without complaint, to sit on command for treats or on walks, and to inhale her food.

But the playing… As they’ve matured, Margot will romp only in the early mornings or just before bed, which means no one sees this side of her but us. Everyone else thinks she’s All Emo, All The Time. Guinness and Margot both still play with toys, but it’s a solitary activity now. When other dogs play, Guinness has earned the moniker “The School Marm” because she stands next to the boisterous members of the pack and barks, as if scolding them: NO MORE FUN! I believe she thinks she’s playing, but the other dogs ignore her and from us she just hears, Shut up. SHUT UP. shutupshutupshutup

Tuesday night, our world was turned upside down when Tim came home with a new dog toy for Pixie and Penny to play tug with and this happened:

It’s Margot! She darted from behind my chair to get in a standoff with Pixie! So shocking that I grabbed my camera immediately.

Pixie is all, “WTF? What am I supposed to do about this?”

Legacy Writing 365:262

Years ago, my mother repeated an urban legend about newlyweds. The husband and wife were in the kitchen putting together a meal when he asked, “Why do you always cut an end off the roast before you cook it?”

She thought for a minute and said, “I don’t know. My mother always did it.”

This prompted a call to her mother and the same question.

“I have no idea,” she said. “My mother always did it, so I did it, too.”

Of course, it was time to call Grandma, who laughed and said, “I don’t know why you do it, but a large family called for a large roast. My pan was too small for it to lay flat, so I cut the roast into two pieces.”

We cackled over that story because we knew that even if it was fabricated, there was a kernel of truth in it. There are probably countless things we do without knowing why–we’re just emulating our role models.

Of all the houses my family lived in, and all the holidays we celebrated together, there is one tradition that I still keep. For some reason, before we sit down at a full table with friends and family for any celebration, I feel compelled to take a photo of the table. Sometimes there are people in the photo; sometimes not. But I’m pretty sure there’s not a turkey that ever hit the table (or a ham that hit the floor, Guinness) that didn’t get its Kodak moment. My mother always said she wanted to “make memories” for us, but I also think that a child who’d known poverty and a newlywed who’d known hunger probably came to see a full table as a victory and something to celebrate in and of itself.

This is probably Thanksgiving in Georgia when I was seven; I’m taking my cue from there being only four plates on the table, so possibly my father was in Korea. That china is long gone–Debby knows where!–but I still have some of the crystal stemware you can see on the china cabinet (and of course, still have the china cabinet in my own dining room). The menu: turkey and cornbread dressing, peas and potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, corn, turnip greens, cranberry sauce, pecan pie (I am not a pie eater), and what looks like carrot cake or some kind of spice cake–which I do NOT eat and never would again after throwing up school cafeteria spice cake in first grade.

Edit: My brother David recognized the dining room in this photo as different from the one above. Same table and chairs, but not the same state and city–and I’d have been much younger in that second photo than when the top one was taken. My parents are getting ready for a Christmas party. The table is arranged so that people can move around it getting cookies and egg nog which Daddy is ladling into a cup for the picture. Beyond him is the living room with the tree and presents and the ALL IMPORTANT TV (at least to my siblings, if you recall this post). I’m fine with those cookies and fruit, but that appears to be a coconut cake, Debby’s favorite, at the far end of the table.

There it is: photographic proof that my favorite dessert in the world, chocolate cake, or at least yellow cake with chocolate frosting, is NOWHERE to be seen on two different important holidays. Nobody needs to be telling me the baby was “the favorite” anymore.

Still, the baby will continue to take photos of our repasts “just like Mother” did, because I like making memories with the people I love, too. There will be chocolate cake.

Legacy Writing 365:261

One of the things the nomadic life of an Army brat teaches is that it’s okay to make friends, but don’t get too close. After twelve to twenty-four months, you’ll be moving on, friends will be left behind, and new friends made in another town or at another Army post far away.

When we left South Carolina, my Sunday school class gave me a little silver charm–my first silver charm–a car. “So you’ll always remember to come back,” they said. I was years and years away from being able to drive a car, but I did always feel like there was a road back–even after my charm bracelets, including the car, were stolen in an apartment break-in many years later.

One of the friends I made was Lisa; she’s pictured here with her little brother, Chris.

Their dad was Clarence and their mother was Colleen. Of all the families I’ve forgotten, for some reason, I remember them very well, including plenty of private details about their lives that I’m not inclined to share publicly. Colleen loved music and loved to sing, and I believe she played piano. There was one in their home. Another thing I remember about Colleen was that she called my dad “Sarge,” a shortening of his rank that I’m not sure he liked, but he accepted it from her.

Lisa was younger than I was, and both of us were too young to write letters, so once we moved away, that was the end of our friendship. However, since Terri’s from that small town, I did see Lisa again a couple of years later when we went back to visit. At that point, a year or two age difference was like–I’m grown, and you’re still just a kid! So things were a little strained at first. I remember sitting with her on the piano bench, attempting an awkward conversation, when she finally asked me if I liked a new singer she’d heard on the radio, Karen Carpenter. INSTANT bonding over that sweet, sweet songstress, and all the strain was gone; we were friends again.

I don’t believe I ever saw any of their family again after that visit. I recently found obituaries online for Clarence and Colleen–they both died in 2005. But in my head, Lisa still looks as she does in this photo, they are still a young family, still enjoying music together–and when I think of them, it’s yesterday once more.