has it really been 56 years?

Time flies...that's what they say.  That never feels more true than when one of my kids has a birthday.  Eleven years ago at 2:06pm Luis, my son, entered this world.  He fought it hard through a 42 hour induced labor.  He changed my life forever, in ways I never thought possible.  Since that day, I've never fought harder.  

He has been the light of my life during these past eleven years.  I know that I have had to ask him to grow up much faster than he should have to, and I apologize for that.  I worry that our time together will be up much too soon, that I won't have had the time to teach him everything I want him to know to be a loving, kind, and compassionate adult; to appreciate the wonder of nature and the miracle of its persistance with all the obstacles we have managed to place in its path.  

As for Jessica, she was the light of my life during the thirteen years she was with me.  She is 31 now and I hope that as she continues her journey...well, I love her and wish her a beautiful future filled with hope.  Eyes open, looking forward.

I grew up during an era of intense change.  I've witnessed changes in the way people spend money and time, the way eating habits changed, the careless increase in waste, the race for bigger, faster, better, newer.  Little of it for the better.  Don't get me wrong, I participated in it with gusto at times.  But now, it is my time to change, to follow my own path, rather than the collective path I've so often travelled.  As I look back, there are several moments in my time that have influenced the path I now choose to follow.

The earliest was growing much of our own food when I was young, to age seven.  I cherish the memories of hot summer days, picking tomatos and eating them in the garden, warm, sprinkling them with salt from the little miniature salt shakers Mom gave us to put in our pockets.  There were also the apple trees; we would climb and sit in their boughs eating their fruits sprinkled with that same salt, and then finding the bright red sweet treasure in the strawberry beds.  The smells and colors of flowers so numerous, the house was always filled with stems beginning in the early spring with the burst of daffodils, lilies and tulips.  My favorites, then and now, were the bearded iris with their heavy sweet scent and velvety petals in shades of blue, purple, white, and yellow so deep and rich that you could get lost in them.  In the warm afternoons, we would roll down the gentle slopes to rest in their cool blades of long grass while chewing, tying, and braiding them.  Not to be forgotten were the grasshoppers we would catch and hold captive for the day in jars, replacing them with fireflies at night, and then waking to the symphony of birds and squirrels to begin a new day.  Today, when I hold a well used garden tool in my hands, I'm transported back to the basement and garage - the feel of the tools there, the wood handles rubbed smooth from years of use, the color bleached to a soft gray from the sun. 

Then there was the kitchen, the dominion of Mom.  I don't believe I have ever met a better cook in all of my 56 years.  We would harvest from the garden and Mom would turn it into a wonderfully simple and scrumptious meal.  I remember shelling peas and beans.  Bringing in bowls of apples, pears, rhubarb, and strawberries, all of which were turned into pies, jams, or just put up for winter.  The pantry and basement were filled with jars of the garden's bounty that were there to get us through the winter.  There were always bread, cinnamon rolls, cakes, cookies, pies, noodles, being made from scratch in that kitchen.  No boxed mixes during those early years. 

Over the following years, much of this changed as this nation changed the way it viewed food, agriculture, wealth, business, and its place in the world.  We changed with it moving to a nicer, newer house, shopping in grocery stores where everything was boxed or canned.  And Mom, she moved out of our kitchen and into the school kitchen to work for a few years.  We no longer grew much of our own food.  But I never forgot those days.  My good ol' days.

I found a copy of Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer in a used bookstore a few weeks ago.  I read it nine years ago and it had a profound effect on me then.  I'm reading it again, savoring each word.  It is affecting me as profoundly today as then, bringing these memories, the smells, the sounds to the surface, expanding the wealth of my world.  I read her Animal, Vegetable, Miracle last year with the same wonder and awe at our potential as humans on this planet.  Both bring out a desire to live a 'better' life for my children, for me, for humanity, for the planet.

I have a goal to raise most of our food in the next three years.  In this past year, we have abandoned the mainstream grocery for the farmers' markets and a food co-op.  We try to buy locally and seasonally.  We have begun to make our own butter using cream from a regional dairy and have gathered most of the eggs we've eaten from under local hens.  Our cupboard is filled with jars of heirloom tomatos and strawberry/raspberry jam that we put up this summer.  Last week I made a pie from scratch for the first time in over 30 years.  All really big changes in our lives.  I'm grateful to my sisters who shared my wonderous childhood.  I'm grateful to Barbara Kingsolver for writing from her heart to my heart.  I'm grateful to my parents who wanted to provide the best for us.

I want to provide for my children the way my parents provided for me.   I regret that I didn't do this many years ago for my daughter.  Hopefully, she will be inspired by my efforts.  I'm not sure my parents realized the enduring gift with which they were providing me during those early years.  I know I didn't.  If you are listening now Mom, Dad, thank you with all my heart.