Though my mom and dad were intelligent and very loving, they were not what you would call “book lovers”. Poems were just what others called poems, and pretty much remote from the substance of my life. That is, until I met up with Wordsworth’s closing lines in his poem” I wandered lonely as a cloud” “…and then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils.”
Those words hit me, somewhere deep inside, somewhere between my young mind and my heart. That cold, dreary morning on the walk to school, I also “lonely as a cloud” had been lifted from my dismal surroundings by the graceful shape and dazzling yellow of some daffodils. The pleasure of the moment was exquisite. And it was amazing to me that I could experience emotions that had been felt by a famous poet, emotions that had been expressed so wonderfully.
From that time forward, poetry had new meaning for me. Poetry wasn’t just lines of verse written in accordance with established rules, as it had seemed to me at the time. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned of how Emily Dickinson said she knew when she was reading poetry. It went something like: “when I feel as though the top of my head has been cut off, I know it is poetry!” Although I will be 80 on my next birthday, if I am lucky enough to get there, I have never found a better definition. Thank you, Emily, for rejecting all those high fallutin‘, scholarly formulas. I understand what you meant, and you were and are SO RIGHT!
Potato chips, the girl down the block and WWII
Posted on August 29, 2010 by June
Some may think living in an apartment building that belonged to one’s parents might be a pretty good way to grow up, and it was. That is, looking back over the years from an adult perspective. After all, it was the largest apartment building on the block. Of course, like most kids, I wanted more than anything else to blend into the pack. Being a landlord’s daughter, and living in a small apartment in our building (though it was first floor front, as my mother pointed out), did not make for a life I would have sought out.
No, I wanted to be just like the girl down the block. SHE lived in a real house that was surrounded by well-tended lawn and gardens. SHE had a mother who stayed home all day and twirled her daughter’s naturally curly, blond locks around her fingers after the girl emerged from a carefully drawn bath. SHE could pluck crisp red and white radishes from her garden and offer one to me. SHE had a large, welcoming front porch with a comfy swing. And I noticed with a pang of envy that she seemed to have a pack of friends.
I vividly remember sitting with her on her front steps while the two of us carefully licked the salt off Mrs. Japp’s Potato Chips before swallowing them. We were convinced we had discovered a new method of eating them that brought their flavor on our tongues to a new level. Little did passersby realize that the two little girls in sun suits on the steps were gourmands in the making!
A touch of harsh reality colors the picture, however, when I remember that World War II was just around the corner. Suddenly Mrs. Japp’s became Jay’s because Japp sounded just like Jap, and who would want to buy potato chips associated with those fiends with buckteeth who were out to kill us? The government told us these people were so dangerous to us that they had to be hunted down and thrown into camps for our protection. Yes, fortunately, as years passed this demonization of the Japanese gradually faded from the public memory.
But what a lesson here for me. My visit to Japan years later would, of course, confirm my positive appreciation for the Japanese people and culture. Actually, there are many things we could learn from them, including their awareness and respect for elders. Sure good for nothings are found in all cultures and old age is not a guarantee of character. Yet the expressions of courtesy for old age bring something beautiful into our lives, something sometimes missing in our growingly callous society.
And do you know something? Occasionally, I still lick the salt off of my potato chips. There’s food for thought there.
Keats and me and anonymous
Posted on August 31, 2010 by June
Thank you, anonymous, for nourishing me with your praise. To tell me that my blog conveys truth and beauty and helps to make life a little less hectic for my readers is the highest complement I could hope for. It wasn’t until it was later in life that I really comprehended the significance of the poet John Keats’ words: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, –that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” (Ode on a Grecian Urn)
How true! When we read the large body of superb poetry that Keats produced during the twenty-five years that he graced this planet, we have to step back in awe! And when we ponder the works of the great thinkers in the course of human development, we come back to the wisdom of his words. Some may find this truth and beauty in the Bible, some may find it elsewhere. Sometimes this truth and beauty can be found in the smile of the clerk at the checkout counter at the grocery store, or sometimes, in the supportive words of a loved one, if we are so fortunate.
Keats’ personal letters also reveal the astounding mind and heart behind his works. To know what he knew at such a young age and to reveal himself in such profoundly beautiful writings, what a gift to the world! And thank you, anonymous, for your priceless gift to me. When I wonder about the value of writing a blog at 79, I can savor your high praise. I only hope to merit it!
Strawberries and my mom
Posted on September 1, 2010 by June
Oh, how my mother loved strawberries! Strawberry pies, strawberry ice cream, strawberry cream filled chocolates, strawberry tarts, strawberry everything! I remember how she would wait for the peddler coming down the alley shouting strawberries, or at least something that sounded like strawberries. His voice would be hoarse from the repeated shouting, but we all knew what he was calling. When the price was right, and only when the price was right, my mother would buy them in quart sized cartons and make her memorable strawberry pie.
She would roll out her tender pie dough, fill it with the sugar coated scarlet berries, and then carefully interlace the narrow strips she had set aside to top her work of art. When the pie emerged from the oven, the color of the berries had changed to a rosy pink, and the glistening berry syrup ran out of the small diamonds created by the latticework and gave off an enticing aroma. I can still smell it.
Yet most of all, when I think of strawberries, somehow I think of strawberry tarts. Actually, these were tarts from the bakery. Talk about gleaming red perfect berries (often topped by an inviting dollop of snowy whipped cream)! Talk about having the oozing berries nestled in crispy, delicious tart shells! The tarts, purchased at the nearby bakery on North Avenue, became a dessert mainstay at our home when strawberries were in season.
Besides looking and tasting so good, the tarts made me happy for another reason. After my mom purchased that first apartment building, she started to make more and more trips outside our home. We didn’t have a car when we lived in the two flat, so the trips to the new property were pretty long ones made by streetcar. I missed her, of course, and when she came home with neatly tied white boxes of those treasures from the bakery, her return spelled double happiness. I can see the two of us savoring the moments.
As time has passed, I’ve tried many a bakery in search of strawberry tarts as good as those my mom brought home. Found some very good ones, too. But something is always missing. Never do they taste quite as delectable as those juicy red strawberry tarts my mother and I shared so many years ago.
Piano lessons
Posted on September 2, 2010 by June
When I was around three or four, my mother showed me a cardboard imprinted with black and white piano keys representing the octaves of a piano. The details of this teaching device are more than a little fuzzy, but the important thing about it, of course, was that it worked! It really taught me the names of the keys and made it possible for my mother to teach me the songs in “Thompson’s Book for Beginners”.
The really amazing thing about all this is that my mother, herself, had never