you CAN go home again

There is no sub­sti­tute for going “home.” No mat­ter how strongly I feel about my own home in Lon­don, or how much I loved our var­i­ous apart­ments in New York, when I walk into my mother and father’s home in Indi­anapo­lis, I know I am “home.”

I feel so tall there now! The kitchen where I spent so many happy child­hood hours seems smaller than I remem­ber, the ceil­ings lower, the coun­ters lower, the lights dim­mer. All the cup­boards (or “cab­i­nets” as they were called in my child­hood) are within my reach, but my strongest mem­o­ries of them are from the van­tage point of being 10, crouch­ing on my knees on the counter, to get down a can of corn or the blender, which lived far in the back, on a dark shelf.

Every room in the house is tes­ti­mony to my mother’s intensely per­sonal dec­o­rat­ing skills, and every object has been cho­sen with delib­er­ate care to reflect her taste in any given year. When I was lit­tle, every­thing was yel­low: checked sofa, chairs and cur­tains, the whole liv­ing room a sunny haven, flanked by the fire­place on one end and her conservatory/plant room on the other. Very 1970s! Now, yel­low has been replaced by deep browns and clear whites, in the tuille of the chairs she inher­ited from her mother’s house, in the southern-style shut­ters at the win­dows, the masses of brown and white trans­fer­ware china she has col­lected all her life. The walls are cov­ered with sam­plers she stitched her­self in the long days she spent look­ing after the three of us chil­dren, and there are dis­plays of antique eye­glasses, sym­bol­iz­ing my grandfather’s career as a promi­nent optometrist in south­ern Indiana.

The plants are still there in the plant room: lus­cious ferns, tiny baby prim­roses in hang­ing bas­kets, the ter­rar­ium we chil­dren planted, with even the step­ping stools sten­cilled beau­ti­fully by mother, reflect­ing her belief that every­thing one uses or looks at should be dec­o­ra­tive, should add to the visual landscape.

She has a squir­rel col­lec­tion! No, not taxi­dermy (she is far too fond of liv­ing furry things to do that), but every other con­ceiv­able mate­r­ial: fuzzy Steiffs, cast-iron doorstops, paper­weights, carved wood, all sit­ting demurely on a painted tray, tails tightly curled.

And every­where are pho­tographs. My mother has a pos­i­tive genius for mak­ing arrange­ments of touch­ing, sig­nif­i­cant, his­tor­i­cal (she likes to call them “hys­ter­i­cal”) objects, com­bin­ing them with pho­tographs, plac­ing them all in deep boxes behind glass: all our fam­ily his­tory hung on the walls. My great-grandmother’s pass­port, wed­ding cer­tifi­cate, teach­ing degree, chris­ten­ing dress, string of pearls, pho­to­graph of her hold­ing my grand­mother, smil­ing at her baby from under a cloche hat. My mother col­lects printer’s type, and makes boxes for baby gifts, for my daugh­ter a box filled with types of cats, sym­bols of New York City where she was born, my and my husband’s ini­tials, her birth announce­ment, a photo of her as a new­born baby.

The many, many pho­tographs of our fam­ily reunions, grand­chil­dren arranged stairstep-fashion, the tini­est child chang­ing as more babies appeared! My beloved grand­fa­ther, dead so pre­ma­turely at 64, in the hap­pi­est fam­ily days you can imag­ine, all of us grand­chil­dren being pulled in a cart behind his lawn­mower on the acres of lawn in front of their big, ram­bling stone house, on the street named for him… he with pipe in mouth, billed cap on head, broad smile as he spent his days the hap­pi­est way he knew, sur­rounded by his grand­chil­dren. How he would have adored Avery. This is some­thing my mother and say to each other at least four times, every time we get together. “Wouldn’t he have thought her the lit­tle princess,” for that’s what he called all of us grand­daugh­ters. We were each a princess, when he was with us.

So I went home, last week. My father valiantly dragged in my impos­si­bly heavy suit­case, and I brought out presents for every­one, talk­ing and lis­ten­ing, catch­ing up on fam­ily and neigh­bor­hood gos­sip. Who had sold a house, whose chil­dren had got divorced, how many cars were in the next-door garage in var­i­ous states of dis­re­pair, who had turned gay or got arrested (it’s an inter­est­ing neighborhood)…

And in the morn­ing there was time to sit out on my mother’s screened-in porch, sur­rounded by hang­ing plants, with a giant box of mem­o­ra­bilia from my 98-year-old grandmother’s house. My mother was glad to have me go through it, mak­ing a pile of things I wanted to bring home with me, includ­ing a pho­to­graph of some ran­dom great-aunts, old ladies in their flow­ery print dresses, eye­glasses with rhine­stones at the cor­ners, gnarled hands folded in their laps. And guess what? They were 45 years old when the photo was taken! Times have cer­tainly changed… some­how I don’t think there was a “cougar” among them.

There is a dusty film in some unfa­mil­iar for­mat, of my baby mother held in her father’s arms, and an old photo album belong­ing to my grand­mother with pic­tures of long-ago East­ers spent look­ing for eggs under their giant spruce tree, and Christ­mases in poly­ester paja­mas with tou­sled hair, all of us grand­chil­dren grad­u­ally get­ting older until I sup­pose she stopped putting pho­tos away, and just let them pile up on her bed­side table.

That was the one quiet day at home! From then, time speeded up in a blur of vis­i­tors. My mother’s best friend Janet, gor­geous as ever, host­ess of many, many sleep­overs with her daugh­ter who grew up with me, always the more glam­orous, pop­u­lar and beau­ti­ful! Just look­ing at her famil­iar face made me feel as if the inter­ven­ing 30 years had never hap­pened, and we were once again jump­ing off the dock at their lake house, or our lake house, or speed­ing on water skis behind one of our boats, all of us with per­fect ath­letic fig­ures and per­fect tans, eat­ing hot dogs and steaks and get­ting up at the crack of dawn in 1981 to watch Princess Diana’s wed­ding, on our dodgy aer­ial television.

And along with her came her great friend Dal­lene, famous in my life for teach­ing me to play piano, a joy that has stayed with me all these years; if I’m not as good as I was at age 12, it’s not Dallene’s fault! How many hun­dreds of hours I spent at the piano in her ele­gant Vic­to­rian house, with her son under my feet, try­ing to keep me from reach­ing the ped­als! And her hus­band our high school foot­ball coach, the two of them burst­ing with energy to teach all of us every­thing they knew… Many years later, they turned up in Lon­don on a school trip, and I cooked some­thing for them, a pork roast, Dal­lene thinks, and of course she says, “That was the best pork roast I ever ate!”

It was sim­ply lovely to sit with them and my mother, feel­ing pet­ted and loved, remem­bered as a skinny lit­tle kid tag­ging after the cooler kids, prac­tic­ing my piano and mak­ing choco­late chip cook­ies, see­ing them always in the bleach­ers at my div­ing and gym­nas­tic meets, a set of ladies ready to take care of me and all our friends, stal­wart moth­ers. I love to think that there are girls in Avery’s lit­tle social cir­cle who see me as just such a mother, there to pick them up at the train sta­tion after school trips, to pro­vide pop­corn while they watch a movie. Every time Avery asks for help with her piano music, I think of Dal­lene and what she added to my life, once a week, for years and years, and I told her so! Which made us both happy.

Then it was onto pro­duc­ing lunch for my dear friends Bob and Ann, Bob who mar­ried us in his infi­nite philo­soph­i­cal wis­dom, 20 years ago. Ann was and is a total fem­i­nist and icon­o­clast, and she was more than happy to turn the tra­di­tional mar­riage ser­vice into some­thing that reflected who we were. To get ready, my mother pol­ished the brown and white china, spread­ing a match­ing table­cloth on the din­ing table where we NEVER eat unless com­pany comes! More china shone down from the cherry side­board that my dad made with his very own hands.

It was tricky for me, queen of but­ter, cream and other fat­ten­ing things, to make some­thing that would please Bob and Ann who are 80+ for a good rea­son. They really take care of them­selves, bik­ing through Hol­land last year, play­ing ten­nis twice a week. So I really felt I didn’t want to poi­son them at lunch, and I spent a lot of time think­ing of just the right dish: savoury and fes­tive, yet not heavy and guilt-inducing. I think I invented just the ticket, and I have to tell you that I served the chicken salad in… a cham­ber pot. I really did, as you see.

Chicken Salad with Bas­mati Rice, Arti­chokes, Pinenuts and Cour­gettes
(serves 8)

3 bone­less, skin­less chicken breasts
2 tbsps olive oil
1 tsp Fox Point sea­son­ing
2 cups bas­mati rice, steamed in 1 1/2 cups water
2 heads Boston let­tuce, well trimmed and leaves sep­a­rated
1 large globe arti­choke
2 stalks cel­ery, chopped
1 cup pinenuts, lightly toasted
2 medium cour­gettes (zuc­chini), cut into bite-size batons
1 red onion, diced
2 cloves gar­lic, minced with salt and lemon juice
juice and zest of 1 lemon
hand­ful chives, chopped
hand­ful fresh dill, chopped

dress­ing (optional):
2 tbsps may­on­naise
1 tbsp olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp bal­samic vinegar

Saute the chicken breasts in a large fry­ing pan with the oil and Fox Point, till just cooked. Don’t over­cook. Slice thin and set aside to cool, reserv­ing the sea­soned oil in the fry­ing pan.

Steam rice and set aside to cool.

Line a large bowl (or cham­ber pot) with leaves of Boston let­tuce, just the sweet inner leaves. In a sep­a­rate large bowl, mix all the ingre­di­ents (includ­ing chicken and rice) for the salad and toss well. Add the sea­soned juicy oil from the chicken pan and as much of the dress­ing (or none) as you like and mix well.

Arrange the salad in the bowl lined with let­tuce leaves and serve with baguette slices, rolls, or as my mother did, but­tered biscuits.

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

This was so deli­cious! So many dif­fer­ent tex­tures, col­ors and fla­vors that each bite was inter­est­ing. Be sure to serve a cou­ple of let­tuce leaves on every plate. If you’re the type of per­son who likes things wrapped in let­tuce, eat the salad that way, wrapped in a leaf.

For dessert we had blue­ber­ries, black­ber­ries, rasp­ber­ries and straw­ber­ries tossed in a lit­tle lemony sugar water, and my mother’s all-time, old-fashioned favorite sweet:

Lemon Bars
(serves 12)

1 box lemon cake mix
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup but­ter, melted
1 pack­age lemon frost­ing mix or 1 cup lemon frost­ing
1 8-ounce pack­age cream cheese
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup lemon frost­ing for top

But­ter a 9x9 cake pan and heat oven to 350F/180C.

Mix the cake mix, 2 eggs and melted but­ter and press into the cake pan evenly. Mix frost­ing mix or frost­ing, cream cheese and 1 egg and spread on top. Bake for 35–40 min­utes or until set and golden brown. Cool and spread remain­ing frost­ing on top. Cut into 12 squares.

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

Now I know you will sit up at this and say to your­self, “Self, what is Kris­ten doing with processed foods full of high-fructose corn syrup and arti­fi­cial fla­vor­ings?” And to this I can only say, this was the first dish I ever cooked in my entire life, age per­haps 10, and that’s what we did in those days. I’m sure if I put my mind to it, I could come up with a pre­ten­tious recipe using all organic pure ingre­di­ents, and it would be a page long and cost about $20. But why? How often are you going to eat Lemon Bars, any­way? Once a year? Go for it.

Bob and Ann and we sat around the table for hours, rem­i­nisc­ing about my col­lege days (where he was my pro­fes­sor, to be sure, but he started when my par­ents were there!), our lives in Lon­don, dis­cussing the recent elec­tion, my sister’s career, and the­o­ries of chil­dren in fos­ter homes, all sub­jects dear to our hearts. Best of all were the sto­ries about old pro­fes­sors my par­ents and I had had in school.

“Remem­ber old E., how blind he got in his old age?” Bob asked.

“Sure,” my mother said promptly. “Once there was a kid in my class who had a bet that he could crawl out down the cen­tral aisle, and E. thought he was a dog. ‘Who let that mutt in my classroom?’”

“Ver­sions of that story are leg­endary,” Bob laughed, “but the best is that one kid bet another a quar­ter that he could crawl out. When E. saw him, he walked back where the kid was on his hands and knees and said, ‘Young man, what are you doing?’ And the kid said, ‘I just lost a quar­ter,’ so E. got down on HIS hands and knees to look for it!”

Finally they had to go, hav­ing dri­ven an hour from my col­lege town to see me.

Thurs­day saw me hav­ing cof­fee (I really needed it at that point, jet­lag threat­en­ing to catch up with me!) with my old high school friend Brent, now the direc­tor of the Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity jazz radio sta­tion. We talked over and over each other, try­ing to fill in the gaps between 1983 and now. Indi­ana pol­i­tics, the his­tory of our lit­tle neigh­bor­hood where we grew up, adven­tures in col­lege, and of course the joys of Face­book, where we found each other after all these years!

He raced me home where we jumped in the car and drove two hours to the lit­tle town in South­ern Indi­ana where my mother grew up, and where her mother now lives in a gor­geous lit­tle retire­ment home, where she is the undis­puted Queen. And the old­est lady at 98! “Well, hey there, Bet­tye,” per­son after per­son called to her, while we were there. And she remem­bered me per­fectly, although it’s been sev­eral years since I saw her, iso­lated as she is in that town, so far from Lon­don. “I’d like to go back there,” she said rem­i­nis­cently, “and spend more than two weeks. I was there for two weeks with your grand­fa­ther, and it surely was not enough to see all there was to see…” her voice trail­ing off as she looked into the past, two dead hus­bands ago, another life­time it must seem.

I con­fess to a lit­tle heart-thumping fear when I first saw her. So much older than I remem­bered, liv­ing not in the houses where I vis­ited her as a child, but as a patient, really, in a nurs­ing home. I know that my life is impov­er­ished by not spend­ing enough time with her, and with the other old, old peo­ple who exist in my life. Old­ness can start to seem scary, so far away, as if they aren’t really peo­ple any­more. But the longer I sat with her, the more we exchanged sto­ries, and she looked through the pho­tographs of Avery and John that I had brought, the more I rec­og­nized the silly, chatty, res­olute matri­arch of our fam­ily who held us all together for so many years. When we got up from the table where we’d been sit­ting as she had a cup of ice cream, she started to stand up and abruptly sat back down in her wheel­chair, laugh­ing. “I almost for­got I was liv­ing in this con­trap­tion, honey! Almost stood up on my own two feet. Got to remem­ber I scoot, now, not walk. It’s hell to get old!”

We left after an hour or so, and I kissed her soft cheek and she clung to my arm for an instant, say­ing, “It’s good of you to come see an old lady, honey,” and I could only hug her back and see her old, old eyes over­laid with the snappy brown ones in the pho­tos on my mother’s porch. How odd it is to try to see the con­ti­nu­ity between that buxom, beau­ti­fully dressed young lady hold­ing my baby mother, and this lady so dimin­ished and tiny. But when I said, “Now you behave your­self, young lady, till I see you again,” she squeezed my hand and said, “What would be the fun in that?” She’s still in there, after all.

As if this wasn’t over­whelm­ing enough, I was then taken out for a super-fancy din­ner with eight of my best friends from high school! Sim­ply unbe­liev­able, that I have been friends with Amy, in par­tic­u­lar, since I was five (and she is still exactly the same, with an enor­mous boom­ing laugh and sparkling black eyes, always look­ing for trou­ble), and most of the oth­ers since our high school days. What struck me was the con­ti­nu­ity of their per­son­al­i­ties! Jami, still a veg­e­tar­ian as she has been since one thun­der­struck day at age 14! Tawn, her sis­ter, eccen­tric, bril­liant and white-haired, as beau­ti­ful as ever. Lynette, ever the Fran­cophile among us, who man­aged to marry a French­man! The “other Amy,” older than we, sophis­ti­cated and lawyerly but with the same wicked gleam in her eye. And the lit­tle sis­ters of the group: gre­gar­i­ous Jill, serene and gen­tle Jen­nifer, and Shel­ley, full of zest for life and well she might have, with a boyfriend who is, shall we say, con­sid­er­ably more YOUTH­FUL than the rest of us! She too, is a dis­cov­ery of Face­book, and say what you will about social net­work­ing, if it brings together friends from 25 years ago, I say, bring it on.

It was a good thing we started out at an out­door table, because we sim­ply shouted with laugh­ter! Catch­ing up with sto­ries of our ado­les­cent chil­dren (“is it OK if she has a total atti­tude, or should I nip it in the bud?” was a com­mon topic!), our hus­bands (some of them high school sweet­hearts!), our par­ents, old teach­ers we remem­bered. “Remem­ber how that health teacher told us that if you have a tape­worm, all you have to do to get rid of it is to hold a bowl of mac­a­roni and cheese under your chin, breath in through your mouth, and then when the tape­worm appears, grab it and pull it out?” EEEW! A strong ped­a­gog­i­cal mem­ory for us all!

Home very late, as I really felt I had to talk at some length with every­one! We parted, vow­ing not to leave it another long space of years before we see each other again. How lucky I felt, to have had such good judg­ment in choos­ing friends, so long ago.

And that was that. Hugs and kisses all round with my mother, father and brother the next morn­ing (and of course Maisie the cat!), and off to the air­port. There I sat, not read­ing, not people-watching as I usu­ally do, but lost in the space of years that comes to you when you step back in time. Four days of mem­o­ries… and a lot of love and fun remembered.