Yearlings

The New Year always greets me with that  slick handshake I recognize from situation comedies. It starts with a tight grin, an awkward approach, and then an outstretched hand.

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I don’t trust it. Like the moment the glitter and streamers shimmy to the ground, the hand of fate will retract back to stroke the greasy slick of its hair.

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What will it give? Who might it take? An ounce of sweat here, a pound of flesh there.

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Last year may have felt like the worst year, but hoping for better feels dangerous. Like tempting fate with no regard for the repercussions, the same as spilling salt without tossing some over our shoulders. Better to be a celebration celibate than surprised by misfortune.

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“Shhhhhh,” I tell myself. “Don’t add unnecessary weight to desire for frivolity.”

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There will be ample time for that during each day of the next too-fast-paced year.

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Instead, I want to spend the first few weeks of the New Year thanking the old one.

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I may not have stuck to all (or any) of the  resolutions I set, but if I close my eyes and calm my breath, I can admit that the good days might have been “Great,” while the worst days might soon be remembered as minor victories. Time has a way of changing perspectives, with its knack of letting new experiences reshape old memories into different forms.

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In the wee hours of that first morning, I feel like a yearling. Hopeful and energetic. Youthful but not new. Today is not just another day, it’s the next one. Anything can happen.

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So, as this new year ages, I resolve to mature with it and try to hold on to that hope; to realize where there is room for growth, there also needs to be time for rest.

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I don’t need to be different, and neither do you. We just need to allow ourselves the freedom to adjust.

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Maybe we just need to unplug to recharge.

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Give ourselves a chance to appreciate the small things: the sight of birds at our feeders, cats on our laps, the taste of sweet oranges and savory broths.

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Reclaim your time; take a walk and a nap. Reread a book you loved.

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Extend yourself whenever possible. Offer to help with something. Even if it’s holding a door open or picking up the thing that someone accidentally dropped. Taking the shopping cart back to the corral, even if it wasn’t you who abandoned it.

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Imagine the ways the stranger left it there may have needed your help instead of your disdain.

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Say thank you every chance you get.

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Allow the feeling of gratefulness to exorcise other demons. Let past regrets go. Forgive yourself as often as you forgive others.

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Let more slide. You don’t have to read the comments. Every once in a while, stop yourself from saying every word of your piece.

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It seems more important than ever to greet this each day of this year with a glad hand.

Time, share

 It was a last-minute ask.

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My friend needed a few extra hands to finish her holiday confection preparation as Christmas Eve descended. “Your place or mine … I will come to you.”

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I couldn’t say no.

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She arrived with all the supplies from her kitchen: a dozen eggs, a carton of milk, a quart of neutral oil, a sack of flour, a bag of sugar, and all the spices. She even brought measuring utensils and other dishware we would need for an assembly line of tinkering and finishing touches.

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“These are called ‘Buneulos’,” she said slowly and clearly, nodding patiently as I repeated the word several times, emphasizing different syllables with a question-mark lilt in my voice. She gently repeated the word until my brain could settle the sounds into their proper order.

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“That’s it! You’ve got it!”

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She pulled out a snowflake-shaped mold that had been welded to a long, metal rod tipped by a short, wooden dowel. It gave cookie-cutter quaintness with a cattle brand vibe.

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She worked quickly as she described what would happen next: when dipped in the thin batter and immersed in the oil bubbling in the Dutch oven, a delicate fritter would crisp up and release from the ornate family heirloom with just a few well-placed nudges with a butter knife.

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Despite the steps that had to follow one another in precise order, the process was straightforward: measure, mix, dip, fry, dry, and finally, dust with the crystalline magic that is cinnamon sugar.

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For now, she explained, it would be my job to blot the oil and ensure each exquisite snowflake glistened.

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All went as planned until the first fritter stuck to the mold like glue. Then another. And another. Between each interval, we scraped and scrubbed the washed and dried the snowflake before trying again.

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Three more times, the ancestors, it seemed, refused to give up the ghost.

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It was a mystery.

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We wondered aloud whether it was a Goldilocks problem; maybe the oil was too hot? Or maybe it was too cold? I wondered in silence whether it was the curse of my kitchen, a place where, under my watch, water burns to a crisp.

“Should we just let it go?” my friend asked. “It’s late, and I don’t want to tie up your night. This might just be a sign that my bunuelos are just not meant to be this year.”

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I did not want to admit defeat.

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And although I yet to experience what making 100 snowflake fritters would entail once we were finally “cooking with grease,” as our mothers used to say, I wanted to keep trying.

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I also remembered a long-forgotten deep fryer that still lived somewhere in these cabinets.

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“Maybe,” I ventured, “the fryer would keep a more consistent temperature, and that would be the solution.

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A few minutes of futzing  … and sending the returning college freshman to the grocery for a top-off of oil … was all it took to get the assembly line up and running.

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The boy even rolled up his sleeves and offered to help after he handed over the Wesson.

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One batch and then another … my friend marveled as my boy, with just a twist of the wrist, made the snowflake bloom in the oil like a miracle. No prying needed.

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He fried, I dried, and she packed towering stacks into boxes for distribution.

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We talked, and laughed, and I loved each sweet moment.

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“I’m so glad we persevered.”

 

The gift

 “The best gifts for mothers-in-law.”

I typed this into the search engine and waited. In short order, a few bazillion sponsored links cascaded down the screen.

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I was not disappointed. There wasn’t anything that screamed “revenge gift,” which had worried me a bit as I mulled over the wording I had keyed in at the onset, feeling a little remorseful that the qualifier – in-law – still seemed appropriate and necessary.

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I didn’t think my giftee would be disappointed, either. The selection available ran the gamut between tasteful and classic to playful and zany: There were stylish grippy-soled slippers; a plush robe with safe, sedate color options. Of course, I clicked away from all of those to read more about a green plastic pill case that looks as if it had been molded from an actual pea pod. But I came to my senses soon enough.

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After flirting with the idea for a few moments before abandoning the fake “produce” in my “virtual” cart, I move on to explore the endless array of things no one really needs that, sadly, in the moment in which we find ourselves, may be made entirely of A.I.

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Which is why I tend to feel a little adrift as I wade through all the well-meaning gift guides that media and moguls alike churn out at this time of year. Because the best gifts … we all know … require we know a little more about a person than their age, gender, and place in the family hierarchy.

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We need to know and care about who they are and what they mean to us. We might have to pull out an old story or an inside joke. We have to make a connection.

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Every part of me knows this as I peruse the guides, hoping to find an item that will somehow show my investment in the thought, and not just a brightly decorated box I would hand over like collateral.

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That’s when I happened upon a piece in the New York Times that had collected hundreds of stories from readers about their favorite or most memorable gifts. It was a delightful read that gleaned sweet little snippets, telling of prized memories more than it described mere possessions.

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It reminded me of the Swiss Army knife my father gave me for my college graduation. It was the only thing I wanted for Christmas, or maybe it was for my Birthday, when I was seven. I don’t really remember. I just know from the note that came with it that my father never forgot: “Congratulations on your graduation! You are old enough and wise enough for this now.”

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It also reminded me of the year my sister had handed me a triple-digit gift card for a national coffee purveyor I liked, saying, “Here. This is all I’m doing this year.”  That was the year I thought of her, and said a silent “Thanks, Sis,” every time I needed a little caffeinated pick-me-up.

I know it doesn't have to be a grand gesture.

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And it could be that I buy the slippers that look stylish, but know that the real gift will be the laughter as we sit around after our holiday meal and swap stories of our favorite gifts.

Yearning to be free

 My heart sank a little as I read the opinion after opinion heralding news from Australia that a new law, effective immediately, would restrict children and teens from using social media.

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We all seem to agree that “kids today” are depressed, anxious, and failing to do so many things we were somehow able to master - with one hand tied behind our backs - by the time we were only half their age.

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It’s the clothes they wear … the music …  the video games … the movies … the books … the screens … the bullying … the drugs, the sex  … are all addictions we can beat with abstinence.

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And just as it was our impulse decades ago to keep our kids from ever being alone in the big wide world, we will now seek to keep them sheltered from the World Wide Web.

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But as we all wax nostalgic about the lack of freedom to “just be kids,” we should really be focusing more on the “freedom” we have already etched away.

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I don’t know a single person who would want to relive their youth.

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Sure, they’d like to be able to do some of the things they once took for granted … like eating cheeseburgers, or staying up late on purpose, or sitting on the floor without having to think about whether their knees will enable them to get back to standing.

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I don’t know a soul who would ever be happy going back to pay phones or navigating the roadways with a paper map folded into 27 rectangles.

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Who would rather we lost?

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Nostalgia shouldn’t be the foundation for policies that dictate our future. Nostalgia for our youth -  when we had limited experiences with the world and the understanding of a child - is a seductive and effective marketing tool.  It also clouds our judgment.

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It makes us look for enemies when we are faced with a chaotic present, it helps us isolate a problem or points us to an enemy we can vanquish, and offers the hope of regaining a life we never truly experienced.

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My cohorts worried about the threat of nuclear Armageddon and visited the bomb shelter in the school basement once. Our children worried about whether or not a gunman would get through the barricade of chairs their class had piled against the door during one of several random active shooter drills each and every year.

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We had space and freedom to explore and to get into scrapes; they had stranger danger and organized, optimized play. We could be free in our neighborhoods and beyond once we got bikes; they could be free in Minecraft unless we insisted they share their passwords.

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Is it possible that the chipping away at privacy and freedom in an attempt to secure temporary safety gives us nothing? If they can’t move about, or have privacy and secrets, if they don’t make decisions or get the chance to be independent in thought, aren’t we merely adding to the anxiety?

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If we block another channel for independence, are we asking for more deception and despair?

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There are a host of studies by the Educational Database Online that examine how constant monitoring can be detrimental to our teens’ development and mental health. It suggests that a rights-based approach to privacy policy is imperative.

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It’s not that we shouldn’t demand more from progress and those who power that progress, it’s that we shouldn’t accept anything less than the right to control our own message, no matter what our age.

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Parenting has never been easy, nor has growing up.

Have candy, will travel

 “Are you all packed?”

I wave my hands in the air: part acknowledgement of the question, part indignation about having been asked it.

Of course, I’m not packed.

Packing, as nature and history proscribe, means that I will be pacing around in the eight-square-foot space where my clothes and luggage reside until the wee hours of the morning, as he snores, navigating in the dark with only the flashlight on my phone and a faltering memory of where I last saw the shoe travel bag.

As usual, when I have adequate time to prepare, I find myself shoving coconut flakes and confectioners' sugar into a tote bag a few minutes before we depart for a weekend in Maine.

This is how one finds themselves emptying out the “baking supplies” drawer into a tote bag seconds before hitting the road.

“There are stores near my mom’s,” my husband says with a laugh he has cultivated to isolate the madness of my method.

This trip - part work, part family diligence, part holiday social - was also somewhat impromptu. Once we return, I’ll have only an hour or so to pull a few dozen cookies and a tin of candy out of thin air for a different soirée.

Now as part of not packing my bags during normal packing hours, I had instead decorated a cardboard box to use as a photo booth prop (and tested it with the resident cats).

I also puttered around the kitchen, quickly mixing a new favorite cookie dough that I would roll into logs and store in the fridge. They would be perfectly chilled and ready to slice and bake a mere few minutes before the party.

(I’d been testing them for weeks now, slicing and baking just one or two so as not to overindulge.)

This is when a bell tolled for a message entering the imaginary chat:

“You’re still bringing the potato candies, right?”

And just like that, my feeling of accomplishment at pre-planning a batch of warm cookies disappeared as I realised I had done only enough calculating to know that there wasn’t enough time for the Needhams, for which I’d become known.

He was schlepping the bags of piled next to the door, while I found a package of chocolate chunks and tossed it in with the rest. I contemplated bringing a potato … the secret ingredient … but decided against it, rationalizing there may be an occasion to exploit a near-future dinner’s leftover mashed.

Despite having tasks to tick off, I know there will be time to fill.

As we drive northward, I notice the depth of the snow in the woods, where remnants of it still cling to the trees. I also notice my shovel-tightened muscles have started to loosen.

I smile broadly, imagining how the work of the holidays can also feel effortless, like your mind hurtling itself into a soft snowbank depicted on an old Currier and Ives print.

Make time to enjoy the work and the play.

Home fires, burning

 “Mom! Mom! Mom!”

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I jabbed at the phone in my hand, trying to will myself (and my family) into the apex of modern technology.

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“Hello? Can you hear me?”

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“Maaaaaaaaaaaam!”

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“Hold on ….  I feel like I’ve drifted back into the 1980s …”

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I had tried the impossible … adding a new contact to a call that was already in progress.

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For a moment, I was surprised by how easy it was.  

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Then the moment was gone.

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“Gah! MAAAAAAAM!”

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That’s when I realized all I was doing was toggling between the noisy car where my daughter was safely ensconced in the passenger seat, holding the phone up on speaker mode as her father was chauffeuring her westward for the start of the holiday season, and the quiet dorm room of her brother, who would be venturing north by train the next day.

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I tried to bring back the Party Line, but I’ve only managed to revive Call Waiting.

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For the next several minutes, I attempted to conduct two conversations simultaneously. At times, placing and releasing the hold button so fast that I thought it a small miracle I hadn’t disconnected the connections by accident, despite having mixed the trains of thought fairly consistently.

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This was the fastest I had ever traveled between New York City and Boston, albeit by phone.

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“MOM! Stop. Look down at your phone. On the left? See it? Now press MERGE.”

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How had I missed that? The word appeared in the same location ADD had been moments earlier. It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be more than one step.

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When I pressed it again, my son’s voice chimed in: “Finally!! We have a conference call. I knew you could do it.”

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The banter continued with cartoon voices delivering tiny slights and booming guffaws. The mood was light as it pinged around, occasionally interrupting transmissions with moments of radio silence.

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I couldn’t wait for them to be home. All of us under one roof for the first time in months.

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There’s a delicate balance to this back and forth that, I know from experience, could be quick to go off kilter. Even through the laughter, a word can slice any intention too sharply and tear all the ties that bind us to shreds.

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We tend to take turns trying to prop up  jokes that fall flat. Saved only by backtracking and a heartfelt apology.

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This time, the conversation is elastic. The witty repartee stretches further and wanders into strange territory. There is a cohesiveness despite our being so far apart.

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My children, shapeshifting into adults.

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Each of them brings big ideas for change to our traditional holiday menu. The girl has plans for a savory baked mac and cheese, started with a classic roux and rich caramelized onions, and a zingy dessert. The boy wants a Wellington and is willing to take over as chef.

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It is refreshing. Especially when my daughter hands me a sugar-encrusted globe and tells me to put it between my teeth and wait for the “pop.” The candied cranberry explodes with a gush of sweet and sour sparks. 

Age of Reason

I willed myself out of the house on what might otherwise have been a sleepy weekend afternoon.

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The simple song of “It’s a beautiful day; you should do something,” played on repeat in my consciousness until I could stand it no more and decided that “something” should include something besides laundry and other routine chores.

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In the olden days -- where the watery memories of way back replay a muddled soundtrack of babies that never sleep, toddlers who never sit still, and weekends that taxed our souls with hour-by-hour activities — I would have happily stayed on the couch, under a blanket, nodding off to a non-linear stream of Hollywood extremism mixed with journalistic gut punches.

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Those days are long gone, it seems.

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I’ve had ample amounts of rest, lately, if not a dearth of peace.

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Still … as a woman of a certain age and immovable habits, I find myself unable to veer too far off course.

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I didn’t have a clear plan. Just the inkling that I should take advantage of the rarity of the sun shining and not needing to be anywhere or do anything for anyone. I could make myself a fancy cup of caffeine and just walk around looking up at cornices and front doors as I strolled up and down sidewalks. I could go into a posh shop and just browse.

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I might jog through a new neighborhood.

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I would do something that I could consider a reward for tasks I have put off because, in my mind, they are also treats: things like buying a fancy yogurt at the grocery store when I cash in the bottle deposits. Or, as I would decide before lacing up my shoes, perusing the racks of clothing at the thrift store when I finally offload the dozen bags of donations I’ve been driving around the county these past three months.

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I may not be able to do anything about the current president, or the tsunami of racism and hatred that seems to be growing stronger as it engulfs us all, but I can plug in to another reality for a while.

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I settled on Goodwill.

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It’s been a while since I feel a strange rush when I reach for the door and it gives way, since I never can tell if the place is open.

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The donation bins are tidy, with plenty of space for the bags I’ve brought for deposit. I chart my course through the aisles counter-clockwise. Men’s department, children’s, housewares, small appliances, until finally situating myself amid the vast array of women’s accessories and clothing, gravitating toward the blues and greys and purples segments of the inventory.

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Nothing ever changes in this store; I like that.

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The place smells of inoffensive but uniform detergents rather than dust.

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I also like that, as I click the hanger of one azure sweater into another – perhaps more lapis than indigo – I am comforted by the conversations all around me.

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A professional woman, her chin tucked into her phone, discusses plans for the weekend as she skims through blouses. A boy skips up to his mom, who is selecting jeans, with hope burning in his expression and a prize clutched in his hand. She is equally delighted to extend the award. Three twenty-somethings – who I imagine are home for the holidays – discuss their shared understandings of age and grace as they push an empty cart from one end of the rainbow to the other. They are so in sync, they seem to finish each other’s sentences.

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And for an instant, I am right there with them.

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Their laughter is so familiar. It is effortless and honest as they catch up with each other.

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I find myself edging closer, ready to revisit the joy and freedom of youth.

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“My mom turned 60 this year … and I am not ok with it. For the first time in my life, it really feels like she looks old. Not that I would EVER tell her that.”

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For an instant, the realization felt a little like a gut punch as I recalled a recent conversation with my daughter about feeling old. She had countered with fierce enthusiasm that I was still a youthful apparition. Of course, it wasn’t true. Although the blow softened as I accepted that I, too, would never have told my mom she looked her age.