pull up a chair

i grew up with one.

pretty much it’s the balm on the far end of harried days. it’s what happens when you start to lose the dinner hour. when trains run late, or deadlines detonate the time clock that was your chopped-seared-and-plated two-course hope. when coaches call a practice smack dab at chow time. when sweaty gyms take the place of civilized dining chambers.

it’s the plate that waits, gosh darn it, that stands up to any threat to steal away that modicum of grace, of communion, at the end of a long day.

it’s the ceramic plane, piled with foodstuffs, that tells you, worry not, we bend here to what you need. we won’t leave you to fend alone in the cold dark kitchen. we’ll extend the dinner hour, late as you need it to be.

in this house, you will be fed, and fed as if you were right here among us at the noisy dinner table. we did not forget you, as we piled high the plates, put out the napkins, clasped hands in simple ad-hoc prayer.

it’s the late-plate, all right, a dish i long ago came to know, came to count on.

for weeks on end, way back in high school, i remember coming in the house, soggy wet from hours in the pool, and knowing where to look, under the stove light, the one that burned late into the night, shining spotlight on a plate of sensible sustenance, my mother’s forte, my mother’s gift to me.

i learned, as so many do, at the hand of my mama. learned what it feels like to be fed, to sit down hours after all the others, sink your fork into a baked potato, slice a chop, impale a pea, because whoever did the dishing up that night didn’t fail to think of you. to want to feed you. to leave a warmed-up calling card.

and so now, it’s my turn. i’m the mama of a boy who just this week has set his oars in the water, took up crew, a lovely sport, a sport that sets you sailing down smooth channels, a sport that makes you hear a soundtrack in your head, some english sort of rowing melody, chariots of fire, perhaps, phillip glass (i know the latter because i hear the dissonance pounding through the speakers as the fledgling rower mimics all the pulling through the waves, only on dry land, down in the basement, where so far at least, it’s a space without a current).

seems the crew team strokes daily till 8 bells, night bells, and so the sweating mass of muscle and newfound sport, bounds through the door near half past that hour, and finds i’ve left for him a circle of sustenance, just like my mama did for me.

the age-old rite continues: i’ll leave you a plate; dinner will be waiting; it’ll be under foil, in the oven, on the stovetop, in the fridge.

somewhere, you who i love, who i tend body and soul, there will be fuel for the end of your day. food to fill you.

and, as it’s always been in these kitchen matters, there will be a good measure of love stirred in, for there is rarely a recipe worth its cups and measures that does not behold an equal mix of passion.

we cook to love, many of us. even if we don’t always love to cook.

it is, more than most domestic arts, a telegraph of pure affection. one that stands a chance of registering as such. can’t say my heart is swooning as i dust the silt off the bedside table in my messy boy’s room, or as i wipe down the toilet seat of boys who, well, must not pay close attention to the target.

but in leaving a simple plate of sauteed apple slices, sprinkled with cinnamon, dried cranberries, bathed in just a dab of butter, a sausage grilled, sweet potato bursting earthy sunset-orange, i am whispering in that tall boy’s ear. saying, you deserve more than cold deli turkey, more than spoon of peanut butter, more than power bar.

shining there, under the 40-watt bulb that illuminates the stovetop, that plate says clearly: welcome home. sweet heart, day’s not done till you are here among us. till you’re fed, sated, full again.

day’s not done till we’ve met you with the truth that here, on our watch, you will always be tended to. we won’t send you off to bed, wanting.

not for anything.

what messages do you signal from your stovetop? or do you tap out lovenotes in other keys?

i heard the house exhale the other morning, a deep resounding sigh.

i listened close. heard an echo. realized it was my soul, doing the same.

there was no other sound anywhere in this old house. i was, bound by snow and drifts, home for one sweet day. home, alone.

home with pipes that gurgle now and then. home with wind, humming through the window cracks. home with flocks of cardinals, grace wrapped in scarlet feathers.

i realized, feeling the deep warm wrap, feeling holiness seep into my pounding chest, i realized what i’ve known for years now: tiptoeing through this house, dreaming out its windows, catching light and wing and flight, is the marrow in my bones, the illumination in my soul.

all at once, as the teakettle turned up its whiny song, as i listened to the clock tick-tock, watched the snowflakes tumble down and down, i diagnosed what’s been wrong all these last few months, what’s made me cranky, feel like pent-up steam about to burst: i’ve been home sick. away-from-home sick.

oh, i race in each night, just round dinner time. sort the mail, dump the junk. eyeball someone’s homework. check the fridge, see the milk is gone, race out to the store, alone with all the other mamas who wrap up errands when the clock strikes ten–just in time to miss the nightly news.

i’m up at half past five, racing once again, packing lunch, stirring oats, sometimes treading on my mill (as if i need a power cord to do that never-ending exercise).

oh, yes, i hang my coat here. sleep in a bed here. cook and clean. but what’s been missing all these months is something so essential: i breathe from the bottom of my soul here, when i’m alone, when i’m in rhythm with the light and wind and birdsong. when i’m here to dash to the rescue of a broken stem, a worm that’s drowning in a puddle.

don’t laugh. it’s deeply true.

i am at once two souls: one who dearly loves the women of my workworld (and a few of the men as well), but one who lives and breathes for the solitary world, the grace-filled homescape that speaks to me as prayer.

i felt the slowing-down seep deep the other snowy day. i felt the pilot light of faith spark a higher flame. why, i even had the apple sliced, laid out in pinwheels, when the little one bound in the door.

isn’t that a higher grace than water-cooler chatter?

some days maybe not. some days there are wounds to heal beyond these walls.

but all in all, it’s here at home where i am filled with deep, still grace.

staring out my kitchen window, watching snowflakes pile high, i caught that papa cardinal pecking at the few last berries on a bush. i heard the breath whoosh out of me, so startled by his scarlet red, so close.

as the quiet wrapped around me, and i soaked in his coat of bishop red, i felt certain i had tripped upon the cure to all that’s ailed me.

i felt home, again.

i know, i know. last week i wrote of the joys of being surrounded by a circle of wise women at work. such is the yin and yang of life. all i know is i breathe best when i am home, and with all my heart i wish i could stay here……

why do you love to be in your house? or, conversely, what do you absorb from the busy world beyond your walls?

she might not happen by here today, but doesn’t matter. i am sending birthday love to one of the finest hearts and minds and souls i know. my beloved crd, a brilliant light in my life and so many others’. and not just when the halo comes from a ring of birthday candles……xoxox

as much as i kicked and screamed and cried when told i would be leaving my little old french pine table, and the turn-of-the-century lithographs of little bo peep and her sheep that grace the walls here in this once-garage.

as much as i still ache for the hours of being alone here in this old house, of starting a slow-cooked stew, or tossing in a load of darks when the laundry basket groans under the immensity of all the piled-up sweat and stain that comes from three boy bodies.

as much as i miss looking out the window, catching shifting shadows, watching birds pop worms into each other’s mouths, marking seasons come and go.

as much as all that, i have discovered for the first time in a long time that rare gift of slipping into a circle in which the inhabitants all hold each other up; not only understand each other’s lives, but in varying shades and combinations live that very life.

at the place where i type three days a week, we have, all of us, found ourselves plonked into pre-assigned seats, complete with chair, drawers and computer.

oddly, curiously, the cluster of four part-time working mamas are assigned to desks across the great divide from nearly all the others. right off, we felt sequestered, whispered to ourselves that we’d been banished to some siberia.

we call our cove of desks “the cul-de-sac,” and while we hear the chatter from beyond the great divide, hear the peals of laughter from the jokes they seem to share, watch them come and go to lunch, pass bonbons as well as bon mots, we’ve come to not mind, really.

you see, in between the typing and the phone calls, we’ve begun to weave together the interstitia of our lives.

we know who was up at 3 rocking her baby, and never did get back to sleep (while the baby’s father, mind you, snoozed the night away). we see how the tired one now sits listing in her chair, wearing washed-out pallor with her sharp black boots and sweater, in the phosphorescent glow of the grey-green office light. and, each one of us having been there once upon a time, we all but race to her side, prop her up with dark chocolate and deep sighs.

we all gasp, collectively, when the call comes in from the school nurse, and one of our little ones has succumbed to a head bump, complete with spurting blood. and stitches, suddenly, are the order of the day. and we put our heads together, counsel on the virtues of pediatric plastic surgeon versus run-of-the-mill ER doc, when it comes to sewing thick black thread through the gash in that once-flawless. still perfect, kindergarten face, the one we all know from the pictures that ring his mommy’s desk.

we laugh, or else we’ll cry we decided, when lamenting the heartache that will come when the one whose husband lost his job has to take on full-time work, leaving home a baby not yet six months old, because the home economics hold no room for only working three days, no room for two extra days a week cradling that baby whose smiles she can’t bear to miss. for even one hour, let alone the extra 16.5 she’ll have to lose. (we have done the math, down to the minute, racking our brains to shave a half an hour here or there.)

and sometimes, in between the triumph of a masterfully crafted sentence and the groans of a deadline we can’t meet, the snippets of conversation, the truths exchanged, are so truthful, and so stirring, i find myself tossing them round and round my head for days after they are uttered.

just this week for instance, or maybe it was last week (the days all blur, i tell you), i’d been recounting some homefront frustration, the barely-capped angst with which i met the morning’s revelation that a winter coat was, um, left across town the night before, in a gymnasium, now surely locked, where i would have to knock in vain (and wintry cold) in distant hope of retrieving said essential garment.

somehow, i can’t remember quite the line of questioning, i looked up and asked the sleepless one, who has a girl of four besides the baby, if she had ever raised her voice at that blessed child, the four-year-old. ever?

she paused, thought for a good while, sheepishly smiled, then answered, “no, i don’t think i ever have.”

quickly, she blamed it on her particular four-year-old. “she’s sooo good,” said the mama, brushing off any credit for this stunning revelation.

i sat stunned, all right. still do, pretty much.

ever since, i’ve been walking through my waking hours, especially here at home, reaching for her placid heights. i am channeling, with all my might, her very gentleness, her calm.

“if she can do it–not raise her voice in four whole years–i can try to get through just one morning’s rush out the door and off to school without the knee-jerk rise in decibels, the clipped syllables, the huff and puff that comes from hurry and the dread of missing that old school bus.”

i repeat it like a mantra, hour after hour.

and as the days and weeks go by, i’m coming to realize how very much i carry home the company of splendid women who fill my downtown days.

i find that not only do they bring me solace in the typing place, but here at home, i’m inspired too. trying to live up to the good grace of the one who does not yell, the smarts, the dead-pan funny of each and every one.

i’ve found, once again in my most blessed life, that being surrounded by a phalanx of smart strong women is, of all the prescriptions i know, among the surest for getting through the bumps, the curves and full-out tailspins that come at any turn.

tell me about the company of women (or men) who are your saving grace….