back home again, in Indiana

When you’ve moved house (and state, and coun­try) as many times as I have, you learn to make friends eas­ily.  John and I have had 15 homes in 22 years of mar­riage, and in every sin­gle one I’ve man­aged to gather enough good peo­ple to make life worth­while, share­able, warm and worth liv­ing.  I’ve been very lucky.

Then I go “home.”  Back home again, in Indi­ana.  And I remem­ber how won­der­fully com­fort­able, easy and FUN it is to be with friends and fam­ily who’ve known me since I wore a size six mea­sured in YEARS, kids who played in my sand­box, knew the names of my most impor­tant stuffed ani­mals, learned to drive with me, whose broth­ers were my teen crushes, peo­ple who worked till mid­night on the school paper with me and sat next to me while I learned to speak French and NOT to do algebra.

As I get older and take my par­ents less for granted, worry about them and miss them, it is sim­ply won­der­ful to be with peo­ple who grew up under my mom and dad’s watch­ful eyes along­side me, who admired them and counted on them as part of the happy Mid­west­ern child­hood we all shared.  Sit­ting on my mother’s beau­ti­ful Indi­ana porch, in her per­fect brown and white liv­ing room, sur­rounded by the fur­ni­ture and objects and gar­den I grew up with, it’s easy to con­vince myself I’m still young, a cher­ished child under my par­ents’ roof.  At “home” in Lon­don, there’s no doubt that I’m the grownup, with my hus­band, in charge of my own house­hold, respon­si­ble for my fam­ily, mak­ing sure we are all taken care of.  But at “home” in Indi­ana, I can relax com­pletely and bask in the illu­sion that noth­ing has changed.

Of course, every­thing has changed.

First upon my arrival in my child­hood town, I went to the lovely, imper­sonal nurs­ing home to visit Dad.  I’ve come to real­ize that part of the new life — with Dad in some remote place we can only imag­ine — is that we must expect the unex­pected.  Two years ago, when he was still liv­ing at home, he was vis­i­bly tense, ner­vous, unsure of him­self and the world around him.  It was the ele­phant in the room, know­ing that the sit­u­a­tion could only get worse, that in a very short time some­thing seri­ous would have to be done for him.

Then last sum­mer when I went to see him, he had spent five months safely in the care of the nurses at the home, a quiet, dig­ni­fied mem­ber of his new com­mu­nity.  He was resigned, qui­etly pleased to spend time with me, although for the most part it was unclear whether he knew me.

Last week, when I arrived unan­nounced as always, I was shocked to see how he had aged in the last year, but reas­sured to see that he was in the com­pany of the nurses who refer to him as “Doc­tor Paul.”  I approached him with the present I had brought — a cof­fee mug with a crown and “What a Great Dad” on it — and took his hand in mine.  We sat down on a sofa by the win­dow and he clutched with all his strength at my hand, lis­ten­ing intently as I told him I was glad to see him, about the fam­ily reunion I had come to attend, that Avery was well, John was well.

He said, “I wish, I wish,” and I stroked his arm and asked, “What do you wish, Dada-one?”  “Dada-one,” he repeated, my child­hood name for him, shak­ing his head slowly back and forth.  “I’m so glad to be here with you,” I said, tears spilling over although I tried not to seem upset.  Tiny tears welled in his eyes too, and we sat like that, hold­ing each other’s hands tightly.  “I’m a vol­un­teer social worker now, Dad,” I said, “spread­ing men­tal health just like you used to do.  Do you remem­ber how you’d laugh when you said ‘spread­ing men­tal health’?  I wish I could talk to you about it all.”  He stared into my eyes and said, “I wish…”

Sev­eral times he leaned toward me and I hugged him around his bony shoul­ders, still hold­ing his hand, think­ing of all the things those hands had done for me, the shoes tied, back held when I rode my bike, pick­ing toma­toes for me, car­ry­ing suit­cases through air­ports.  How dimin­ished he is now, the child to my grownup.

Finally I led him to his room and sat down on the bed, find­ing the iPhoto book of last sum­mer at Red Gate Farm, which I had given him for Christ­mas.  “I’ll be at Red Gate Farm soon,” I said.  “Let’s look at the pic­tures.  Here’s Avery, and Jane, and Molly…”  He stroked the pho­tos, say­ing, “Unbe­liev­able,” and “Ohhh,” sev­eral times.  Then, about halfway through the book, he shut it gen­tly and said quite clearly, “I can’t go back there.”  I did cry then, say­ing, “No, I know you can’t, and I am so, so sorry.”  We hugged again, then I took him to the din­ing room for his sup­per.  As I left him there, thank­ing the nurses for all they have done for him, he called me by his nick­name for my mother, sev­eral times.  “Lovely, lovely,” he said as I gave him one last hug.

And then, because life goes on and those of us still out in the wide world must enjoy it, we hosted the Big Porch Party of 2012, at my mother’s house.  Lots — but by no means all — of my dear­est high school friends.  And hus­bands!  And boyfriends!

The heat and humid­ity were all around us, but I wasn’t com­plain­ing!  After a British sum­mer of cold, grey rain, I was very happy to be hot and sweaty for a change.  And to be with old friends.

Oh, the food!  I cooked all day, with Mom keep­ing me com­pany (one of my favorite ways to spend a day).

Chicken meat­balls with sour cream brandy sauce, shrimp with wasabi mayo, roasted beets with bal­samic vine­gar, beanand pep­per and sweet­corn salad, dev­illed eggs, but­ter beans with rose­mary and Parme­san, a whole salmon side, roasted with home­made teriyaki sauce (chauf­feured to me from the North side of town by my lovely friend Amy!), and tomato moz­zarella salad.

What a relief it was to talk about Dad with peo­ple who knew him as I did.  “His wit was so sharp it was scary!”  “You know, he taught me hyp­no­sis one sum­mer…” “I was always scared that he was ana­lyz­ing me!”  And he prob­a­bly was.  How won­der­ful to be able to share sto­ries with the peo­ple of my child­hood.  Some friends are even closer to me now than they were in the old days.  I trea­sure every one.

My mother was gen­tly happy to see every­one, espe­cially her best friend Janet, my Sec­ond Mother while I was a lit­tle girl.  It gives me heart’s ease to know she is still at my mother’s side, through all the changes that have taken place.  And doesn’t this yel­low dress and sweater suit my mother down to the ground?  I want her to wear it every day!

An evening to remember.

We were up bright and early in the morn­ing to head to Evans­ville for the long-awaited fam­ily reunion!  How the Wedek­ing fam­ily — my mother’s side — like to gather.  We all thought Mamoo would have been proud that we got together, even after her death this win­ter.  Some things never change, namely cousins in the pool.

Of course “we” aren’t the kids any­more!  We’re the grownups.  It felt very funny to be there with­out Avery, to have no one for whom I was respon­si­ble — to pro­vide a towel, tow around the pool with a noo­dle, take to the bath­room.  I can’t even remem­ber lit­tle Avery in the pool any­more.  But every­one else had kids for me to bor­row.  How heav­enly to see dear Joel and Molly…

And Jill and Molly!

And my beau­ti­ful Aunt Kay, 95 next year!  Ever youth­ful, a true South­ern belle, she rel­ished hang­ing out with Jane.

I finally got to meet my newest cousin, Katie Jane, daugh­ter of my eldest cousin Steve and his lovely new wife Sarah!

We cleaned up to have din­ner at the deli­cious Bone­fish Grill - crispy shrimp in a creamy, spicy, Nobu-like sauce — my good­ness, Amer­i­can por­tions are HUGE!  Mom and I both brought lots of food back to the hotel fridge.  I spent a bliss­ful fif­teen min­utes or so car­ry­ing lit­tle Katie Jane around the restau­rant, trea­sur­ing the feel of hold­ing a baby!  What a joy to have gained a new cousin in Sarah, and her lovely baby, born on Mamoo’s birthday.

The entire fam­ily took over the tiny lobby of the motel that evening, shout­ing with laugh­ter at old, repeated fam­ily jokes until finally the desk clerk shame­facedly asked us to “keep it down.”  It’s hard to keep our fam­ily down.  Molly is so small that she couldn’t even make the auto­matic lobby doors open, but that didn’t stop her run­ning around like a crazy per­son, join­ing in the big­ger cousins’ time-honored tra­di­tion of hide and seek.

Mom and I shared a room and stayed up until all hours, gos­sip­ing, rem­i­nisc­ing, our mys­tery nov­els open on our stom­achs, our places saved, but not a word got read!  It was much more fun to chat, chat, chat.

Up in the morn­ing to make a pil­grim­age to the ceme­tery where our ances­tors are buried: the Wedek­ing great-grandparents (from my generation’s per­spec­tive) who gave birth to all the gen­er­a­tions of fam­ily gath­er­ing this week­end.  I tried to con­vince my cousin Calla to pass up on the kids’ visit to the water park to join us at the ceme­tery.  Here she is, weigh­ing her options.  “Let’s see… ceme­tery… water park…”  Guess which she chose.

The dap­pled light from between the giant Civil War-era cypresses flick­ered over the fam­ily graves, steam­ing under the South­ern Indi­ana sum­mer sun.

Uncle Kenny, the fam­ily his­to­rian and expert on Civil War lore, told of the Depression-era tra­di­tions observed by my great-grandmother and my great Aunt Elma.  “They would appear every Dec­o­ra­tion Day — you know, every May 30 — to remem­ber the sol­diers buried here.  Your great-grandmother would recite the Get­tys­burg Address and your Aunt Elma Gen­eral Logan’s address, declar­ing May 30 to be Memo­r­ial Day, from 1868 onward.  Your Aunt Elma car­ried a giant Amer­i­can flag with the pole in her navel.  ‘That’s because you have an “innie,” Grandma would say.  ‘Well, it is NOW!’” was Elma’s reply.”

We passed the ances­tral home — hardly a com­pound, but a sweet lit­tle house designed by my great-grandfather.

Uncle Kenny drove us to the top of the hill where he used to park with Aunt Mary Wayne as boyfriend and girl­friend.  “I told her we were up here to watch the sub­ma­rine races on the river, and she never could under­stand why she couldn’t see any­thing hap­pen­ing,” he said, shak­ing with laughter.

The heav­ens opened while we had our pre­cious lunch at Steak ‘n Shake, one of my treats when I go home.  And the air was even thicker, more heav­ily humid than before!  The long-suffering hotel man­age­ment had rel­e­gated us to some sort of awful faux-leather-chaired board room, so we all gath­ered there with our var­i­ous lap­tops and iPads, and passed them around, show­ing fam­ily pho­tos to dear Aunt Kay who had her first expe­ri­ence swip­ing her hand across a com­puter screen!

Din­ner that night at Biaggi’s, a lovely Ital­ian place where we feasted — all 38 of us at one long, rau­cous table! — on lobster/mascarpone/portobello pizza, roasted salmon salad, you name it.  Jane gen­er­ously donated a meat­ball from her spaghetti!  How won­der­ful it was to cra­dle her on my lap and chat, catch­ing up on months’ worth of expe­ri­ences and sto­ries.  How she has grown, changed, matured since Christ­mas!  Seven and a half, hard to believe.

Repair­ing to the board­room again with wine and brandy, the fam­ily sto­ries were aired yet again.  To think next year will be the 30th anniver­sary of our reunion tra­di­tion!  And we tell all the same sto­ries every time.  “Remem­ber the old one Mamoo used to tell, try­ing to get great-Grandma Wedek­ing to laugh?  That woman had no sense of humor,” Uncle Kenny reminded us.  ‘Mamoo would say, ‘Have you heard the one about the can­ni­bal who passed his friend in the woods?’ And great-Grandma would say, ‘No, what about him?’  And Mamoo would say, des­per­ately, ‘But that’s it.  The can­ni­bal who PASSED HIS FRIEND in the woods.  Get it?’  Finally great-Grandma would frown and say, ‘Well, he had no busi­ness eat­ing his friend in the first place.  This party is get­ting a lit­tle ROUGH.”  And Mama Jessie, Mamoo’s mother, would shake her head and say, “That’s it, I give up!”

That evening, Jill joined Mom and me for our sleep­over chat, trad­ing sto­ries about our daugh­ters.  Fam­ily.  There is noth­ing like being together.

In the morn­ing there was one more pool adven­ture.  Molly’s cartoon-voice flowed over the party.  “Ladies and Gen­tle­men, boys and girls, wel­come to a splashy show with the amaz­ing… Molly Grove!”  “Get out of the way, Mommy!” she pleaded.  “I can’t!” Jill protested, “You’re hold­ing my hands!”

Finally it was time to line up the lit­tle cousins for the rit­ual stairstep photo, miss­ing only Avery and the second-eldest cousin, Ander­son.  Per­haps next summer.

And it was good­bye, for another year.

My brother drove us back to Indi­anapo­lis (pass­ing fields of water­mel­ons being har­vested and loaded into big yel­low school­buses, mod­i­fied for their new job!  I wish I got a photo of them), find­ing a farm­stand with per­fect Indi­ana toma­toes on the way home.

One more evening of gos­sip­ing with Mom, cook­ing Mama Nel’s chicken (so savoury and hot) for a final din­ner together.  Andy pre­pared toma­toes Dad’s way — blanched, peeled and chilled.  I got to pick up Maisie, amaz­ing!  I think she’ll miss me.

Finally after six days in Indi­ana, I hugged and kissed every­one and headed back to Red Gate Farm for an amaz­ing day of thun­der­storms and a 25-degree drop in temperatures.

The thun­der, the light­ning!  So cozy to spend the after­noon indoors, watch­ing the storm, prepar­ing the best chilli ever.  I can’t tell you how messy it was to eat, wrapped up in a let­tuce leaf!

Chicken Chilli with Three Beans and Mushrooms

(serves LOTS, at least eight)

2 lbs chicken breast fillets

3 tbsps olive oil

1 pack­age chilli sea­son­ing of your choice, doc­tored up (I used Car­rol Shelby’s and added extra cumin, paprika, onion pow­der and cayenne)

hand­ful mush­rooms, cut in bite-size pieces

1 jar Mex­i­can sofrito base

1 large can plum toma­toes, squeezed into pieces

1 soup-size can each: black beans, lit­tle pink beans, red beans (really, any beans)

Trim chicken com­pletely and grind in food proces­sor until the con­sis­tency of ground beef.  Heat oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan and brown chicken until cooked through.  Add chilli sea­son­ing and stir well until chicken is coated.  Add the mush­rooms and soften slightly, then add sofrito, toma­toes and beans.  Sim­mer for at least two hours, cov­ered.  Serve with sour cream, shred­ded cheese and cilantro.  In a leaf or with tor­tilla chips, or both!

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The meadow shim­mered in the pour­ing sum­mer rain, as I cooked.

On Sat­ur­day, we will get Avery back from pho­tog­ra­phy camp, where she has been bliss­fully happy!  And then we will mean­der into our sum­mer rou­tine, the three of us, my own lit­tle fam­ily.  I feel so lucky to have been raised with gen­er­a­tions of fam­ily, all of them teach­ing me how to be a mother, a cousin, a niece, a daugh­ter, a grand­daugh­ter.  I can bring it all to Red Gate Farm and cre­ate my own tra­di­tions.  Sum­mer. Sigh.