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!

*************

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.