sigh of relief

As promised, just to get right away — from the pres­sures to achieve some­thing, be on time, say the right thing, remem­ber peo­ple’s names, the whole list — is a ton­ic. Our flight was late leav­ing, long fly­ing, late arriv­ing, the dri­ve up to Red Gate Farm impos­si­bly long. But all it takes is to leave the main road, to turn up onto Jere­my Swamp Road, to remem­ber the thou­sands of times (“How many times have we made this turn­ing?” John asks as always after a long absence) we’ve… left the main road, as it were, to arrive here, to peace.

We found home­made chili in the fridge from Judy, a roast­ed chick­en, eggs, bread, juice, but­ter from Anne and David (who also made the beds), the heat and lights turned on by Farmer Rol­lie, the walks shov­eled, per­fec­tion at midnight.

It isn’t as if bad things haven’t fol­lowed us to Red Gate Farm. The place has seen jobs won, jobs lost, ill­ness, wor­ry, fear and recov­ery. But the pre­vail­ing sense, in the small pan­elled entrance way, smelling of wood­fires, wool and leather, is one of accep­tance. All can hap­pen here, and most has. The place has stood for near­ly 200 years. The peace is in part the tiny scale of the house itself, set inside the hilly, rang­ing land­scape of its set­ting. As the great cook­ery writer Peg Brack­en always said, “Just give me a win­dow over the sink,” and mine looks out over the expanse of my back lawn, lit­tered in sum­mer with tram­po­line, slid­ing slip­py thing, bird­bath filled with goldfinch­es… and today over­laid with a qui­eten­ing blan­ket of snow, punc­tu­at­ed by red barns and per­me­at­ed with the gur­gling of an over­filled brook run­ning into the pond.

But then you enter the house, whether through the love­ly front entry into the warmth of the Christ­mas tree, or more like­ly, through the messy kitchen door into the smell of chick­en stock on the stove, the sound of kids singing, peo­ple wrap­ping presents, some­body shout­ing, “Get me a Phillips screw­driv­er, quick!” and “The Hol­ly and the Ivy” play­ing in the back­ground. It’s always full of boots peo­ple have shoved off their feet in a mis­guid­ed hope to keep the wide floor­boards clean, shop­ping bags full of ingre­di­ents for some dish I’ve decid­ed I can’t wait to make: pesto, meat­loaf, pota­toes dauphi­noise. And then some­one knock­ing at the back door: Anne and David with baby Kate, here for the first din­ner of the hol­i­day, Rol­lie in his win­ter work­suit and hat, ask­ing, smil­ing, “Was the Christ­mas tree what you want­ed, then, Kris­ten?” a bone-crush­ing hug, his only expres­sion of his feel­ing for me. Then the UPS guy, “You’re back, I see,” and then Jill pok­ing her bright face in this morn­ing, “Just mak­ing sure you’re here before I bring in Mol­ly,” and my mag­i­cal, gor­geous, sprite of a new­born niece… and her big sis­ter Jane, giv­ing me a hug with arms AND legs tucked tight around me.

Bliss. Can­dles lit in the win­dows, the sil­ver bells John’s mom gives us every year with a leg­end from the past twelve months engraved on them, the stock­ings hung by the fire, rib­bons strung along the din­ing table, an enor­mous pot of pork ribs sim­mered in gar­lic toma­to sauce ALL after­noon. An entire lux­u­ri­ous after­noon with my sis­ter to chat, get to know her baby (“she’s real­ly just a baby,” we say, uncon­vinc­ing­ly to each oth­er), admire Jane’s grow­ing per­son­al­i­ty of stag­ger­ing humor and mem­o­ry for all our con­ver­sa­tions and fun of the past, thank­ful­ly hand­ing over the task of wrap­ping presents to my crafty, clever daugh­ter who ENJOYS it, bless her heart! It must have skipped a gen­er­a­tion, the love of wrap­ping, because I have clear Christ­mas mem­o­ries of my own moth­er con­tent­ed­ly run­ning through roll after roll of paper, tape, ribbon.

Today the snow­storm had stopped and the land­scape was that impos­si­bly per­fect Ver­sion Num­ber Two of what every­one back in Eng­land expects we have when we’re here: in sum­mer, it’s the green, green grass, the blue sky, rush­ing brook, wav­ing tiger lilies. Today it was blue sky, yes, but also the red of the barn against the blind­ing white snows­cape, the dead hydrangea blos­soms wav­ing in the wind, white pick­et fence with the red sign my dad made say­ing “Red Gate Farm” hang­ing close beside the (you guessed it) red gate. One moment when John said, “Would you have time to help me to get every­thing look­ing real­ly nice for when my mom and dad get here?” And silence for that moment… He’s on his way to get his mom at the air­port right now, and while some of the mem­o­ries will be sad, his dad will be here with us, and the bliss­ful, grate­ful mem­o­ries of years of fun will over­come the sad bits, I know. Noth­ing here has ever changed, even when every­thing does. This place remains to open its for­giv­ing arms to us, “I know you’ve been away for months, but come on inside, it’s all still here.”

It’s not all sweet­ness and light, of course. There are the many evi­dences of our fur­ry friends, for exam­ple, tak­ing refuge in the house while we’re away, and hasti­ly removed by Rol­lie before we arrive… when we used to come here every week­end, I left but­ter out on the counter so it would be nice and soft when we arrived. I will nev­er for­get the LAST week­end I did that: on the Fri­day night we stag­gered into the house with all our clob­ber to set­tle in and find… dis­tinct rows of TEETH­MARKS in the but­ter. So not invit­ing, so not yummy.

And today, would you believe: I made a gor­geous pot of red pep­per soup with thyme and brandy, and poured it through the sieve into… a stock­pot full of SOAPY WATER. Tru­ly. Yep, home­made stock from the roast­ed chick­en Anne left us, pep­pers labo­ri­ous­ly picked up by me and John in TWO sep­a­rate trips… and I poured it into Fairy liq­uid. But here’s my fam­i­ly for you. I said, “That’s the dumb­est thing I have ever done,” and what does my hus­band say? “I bet not,” while my lov­ing sis­ter chimes in, “You mean today?” Well, we’re none of us per­fect, I say, while pour­ing cups and cups of love­ly red ambrosia down the sink. Grr.

After a pro­longed search through the house­’s many book­shelves, we final­ly found the scat­tered favorite Christ­mas pic­ture books: A Pussy­cat’s Christ­mas, A Child’s Christ­mas in Wales, A Christ­mas Car­ol, The Birds’ Christ­mas (a lit­tle-known love­ly sto­ry by Kate Dou­glas Wig­gin), and my per­son­al can’t-read-with­out-cry­ing favorite choice“When It Snowed That Night”, by Nor­ma Far­ber, which I first read about in my favorite Christ­mas mys­tery, “The Body in the Bouil­lon,” by Kather­ine Hall Page. It sums up my Christ­mas: moth­ers, presents, Kings, chil­dren, babies, and chick­en soup, plus a fair num­ber of mir­a­cles, actually.

The Queens came late, but the Queens were there
with gifts in their hands and crowns in their hair.
They’d come, these three, like the Kings, from far,
fol­low­ing, yes, that guid­ing star.
They’d left their ladles, linens, looms
their chil­dren play­ing in nurs­ery rooms,
and told their sitters:
“Take charge! For this
is a mar­velous sight we must not miss!”

The Queens came late, but not too late
to see the ani­mals small and great,
feath­ered and furred, domes­tic and wild,
gath­ered to gaze at a moth­er and child.
And rather than frank­in­cense and myrrh
and gold for the babe, they brought for her
who held him, a home­spun gown of blue,
and chick­en soup ‑with noo­dles, too-

and a lin­ger­ing, last­ing cradle-song,
The Queens came late and stayed not long,
for their thoughts already were strain­ing far -
past manger and moth­er and guid­ing star
and child a‑glow as a morn­ing sun -
toward home and chil­dren and chores undone.