Hung up on weather...

"Did you catch the few minutes of sun this morning?" a friend in the Rochester grocery store said to me this morning. "I'm not sure...was that the sun?" I asked her. Once at the checkout counter I noticed people trying to get through more quickly than usual. Rochester is a a small town where people take time to stop and chat, as if that is what they come to town to do. It is refreshing that the pace of life slows down. Conversations in town inevitably start with the weather. Today the few rays of sun over Rochester were struggling to defy the threatening rain clouds.

On my five mile drive home I saw a neighbor walking her dog along the road. I stopped, rolled down the car window to say hello. She greeted me with "how are you doing with this all this rain?" I was momentarily comforted knowing that I'm not the only person around here focussed on weather.

Lately I have become more preoccupied than usual with the weather because it has been one of the wettest, coldest springs in several decades. I seem to be continually checking with meteorologists Mark Breen and Steve Moleski, on Vermont Public Radio. Their voices have become as recognizable as family members. Sometimes they report more than I really want to know about weather facts, and yet I stop what I am doing to listen to the"Eye on the Sky" report as if my life depended on it. I know I will survive but am not sure my mood will.

Vermonters are preoccupied with weather no matter what time of year it is. In the winter the conversations are all about how many degrees below zero the thermometer went last night, or how many inches of snow fell yesterday, or what the road conditions are like for driving over the mountain. Rochester is in the White River Valley between two mountain ranges so heading east or west requires a drive on a winding mountain road to 2500 feet.

In the summer, which always seems to fly by faster than any other season, I have heard Vermonters complain that it's too hot when the thermometer gets above 75 degrees. Air conditioning is a rare commodity in small town Vermont. Only very few businesses have AC like the grocery store. If you go to the Rochester Hardware store on Main Street on a warm day or Sandy's Bakery & Cafe, all the doors and windows are open. I feel the urge in the summer to store up the heat and sunshine so that I can draw upon the memory of it when winter gets here.

Vermont is famous for spectacular fall foliage, but spring is the season that never seems to arrive when it is supposed to or when we need it. At least that is how it is this year. Leaves appear seemingly overnight and the grass suddenly shoots right up and transforms the landscape from one day to the next from white to gray to brilliant dazzling shades of green. Spring bursts on the scene as if to announce that we have all survived another long winter.

By the time I get home from town the sun has gone under. I reach for my well worn fleece and settle on the couch with a book and a blanket. I can always hope that tomorrow will be better.

Digging for ramps...

“We are going to look for ramps,” my friend Helga said to me one early spring day. “What’s that?” I replied, never having heard the word before. “You’ll see…” was all she would say.

Armed with small shovels, carrying plastic bags, and wearing work gloves, we set off up the hill and into the woods behind her house in South Royalton. We hiked a mile or so till we reached a plateau. Suddenly Helga headed over to an area of bright green leaves growing on the ground in clumps and covering the floor of the woods. “Here they are!” she said triumphantly as if she were greeting old friends. She told me that she has been coming to this same spot on the property every spring for the past twelve years.

Taking a small shovel, she dug carefully around a clump of leaves working the roots out of the ground. Freeing them gently, she held up a bunch of leaves with small white bulbs at the root looking much like scallions or smaller version of leeks. That’s because ramps are related to this species, only they are a wild variety. Officially they are known as Allium tricoccum or wild leeks. I watched Helga bend down to dig up more and followed her lead till I got the gist of loosening the roots before pulling out the plant so that the bulb remains intact. Ramps give off a strong garlicky onion odor even while pulling them out of the ground. Bring them in the house and the odor gets can be quite powerful.

Digging up the ramps is the easy part. The work comes in cleaning them as they come out of the ground, like most root vegetables, heavily caked with dirt. It takes much rinsing and soaking and eventually removing the natural film around the bulb to get them clean enough to cook with. Once cleaned, you can chop them up to use in a variety of dishes. Helga chopped some up, put them in a frying pan with olive oil and seasonings, sautéed them, and served them with parmesan cheese over freshly made plain pasta. Delicious… because of their pungent flavor.

Learning to dig for ramps opened up a new world to me - a world of foods found in the wild. I am now aware that this is second nature to my European and Russian neighbors. Helga and Heidja, who both grew up in Germany, told me that this is what they did as children during the Depression and World War II when food was scarce. My Russian neighbors are avid mushroom pickers and seem to know just where to go to pick them and which ones are safe to eat. The ritual of going into the woods at certain times of spring and summer seems to be part of welcoming each new season.

I came home after my first ramp digging experience to discover that there were acres of ramps growing in the woods all over the mountain where I live. For years, each spring I had walked right by this new bright colored green growth in the woods and never had any idea what it was. Now, I am practicing incorporating digging for ramps into my ritual for the coming of spring to Vermont. I have been on the Internet to find ideas for recipes to use them in. There is something deeply gratifying about the freedom of going into the woods to bring home a plant that is delicious to eat. Deep down it feels like I have been in touch with some long dormant instinct I was meant to use while on this earth.

Today my kitchen smells of ramps because the ones I picked fresh today are drying on the counter. We’ll be enjoying Ramp Quiche for dinner tonight.

Mother's Day

Yesterday in her daily email to me, Mom related a story I had not heard before. She wrote: I was thinking about long ago on a Mother’s Day how Mary Blythe and I wanted to get something for our Mother...We had no money and hunted all over the house, under chair cushions and in drawers looking for pennies until we had some money. Mary Blythe said she had a wonderful idea of what to give Mother and was so excited. “Mother will just love this,” Mary Blythe said. She bought a big pink crepe paper rose to fasten on the round part of the telephone. You talked into this huge rose. Oh, how wonderful! What a perfect present. But the rose did not stay on the telephone for very long. Mary Blythe and I just couldn’t understand why the big paper rose was lost so soon and why Mother wasn’t hunting for it.

My mother is the most gracious person I know when it comes to receiving gifts. Perhaps she learned this because of, or in spite of, experiences with her own mother. Having a close relationship with her and being a mother myself, I don’t need a special day of the year to celebrate motherhood. I suspect my Mother feels the same way. However, I have to admit that I liked thinking about what I might send Mom for Mother’s Day this year. Knowing she wasn’t expecting a gift and would be happy with just a phone call, made me determined to surprise her with something that would please her. I had just been for a visit and replenished her wardrobe. I know I can no longer send her a favorite book because her eyes are not good. So I opted for a DVD movie for entertainment. She loved it and thanked me over and over again

I must admit I felt excited when the UPS driver came up the driveway Friday afternoon and delivered a large box with my name on it. Something I had not ordered. A surprise gift for Mother’s Day, for me? It felt like Christmas. I loved opening the card and reading the kind words my son wrote to me. The elegantly packed gift basket of teas and biscuits and a variety of specialty items to go with afternoon tea are just right to satisfy the Anglophile in me. My family knows that and especially my son.

I know Mother’s Day has become another one of those “Hallmark holidays” that fills the shops with greeting cards, your email inbox with advertisements for sending flowers, and boosts restaurant sales. I remind myself that this is the American way, part of our culture. The librarian in me had to research Mother’s Day on the Internet to learn that it’s been an American holiday since Woodrow Wilson’s presidency almost 100 years ago. Anna Jarvis wanted to honor her mother after her death and proposed the holiday in very specific terms. It was to be the second Sunday in May but to be called Mother’s Day. She was specific about the location of the apostrophe; it was to be singular possessive, for each family to honor their mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world. Reading further I learned that only ten years after Mother’s Day was established it became so commercialized that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of her own holiday and fought the abuse of the holiday for the rest of her life. She critisized the practice of purchasing greeting cards, which she saw as a sign of being too lazy to write a personal letter.

I am glad to have marked another Mother’s Day in my life. This year I learned about the story of two little girls searching for pennies to buy my grandmother a gift. My son’s card is tucked away to reread and savor. Most of all I hope that next year I will have the same dilemma of what to get my Mom for Mother’s Day that will please her.

Facebook

I have a new appreciation for Facebook after a slow and reluctant start with it. When everyone was jumping on board with enthusiasm for the new social media, I hung back with my arguments and rationale. Why do I need this? I email friends I want to stay in touch with. It's too personal to put private information "out there" on the web. I don't want to spend my life connected to a computer or other technology device. What happened to living in the moment and experiencing what is going on in real life? Older people aren't spending time on Facebook.

I remember setting up my Facebook page and posting it several years ago. About a week later I panicked and took it down when I thought about the reasons I just mentioned. Then I noticed that friends and family of all ages were beginning to ask me, "Are you on Facebook?" When I got the question from someone my age or older I took notice. Not every one was holding out as staunchly as I was. So, I succumbed concluding that Facebook is all around me. Could it be that harmful? The truth is that I have this fear of being "out of date" and worse, talking about how "we used to do things". That's for people getting old. Not me. I was going to keep up with the modern world so I had better become part of the social media. This time I set up a Facebook page and have kept it.

The realization of the value of Facebook has come to me only recently. While planning our trip to Argentina this winter I began to think about going back to the neighborhood in the Buenos Aires suburb of Acasuso where I grew up. I wondered what had happened to the Harris Smith's, the Anglo Argentine family that lived across the street from us for seven years. Like my family, they had three children of similar ages, and we were in and out each others houses every day for seven years. I lost touch after my family moved when I was 12. Could I find any of them again and how? It took some finagling to find two cousins of the Harris Smith children (one is my Mother's goddaughter), who happen to live in Virginia and who gave me Teeny Harris Smith's married name. She popped right up on Facebook and I sent a message to her in Buenos Aires. She answered right away as if all those years in between had dissolved. We emailed, learned more about each other, and one of the highlights of my visit to Argentina was getting to spend time with her after 54 years. Now I check her Facebook page from time to time looking for photo updates of her large family. I don't think we will lose each other again.

Yesterday, while checking email a strange name popped up with a message from my Facebook page from Paraguay. Patricia Vega Rodriguez wrote...This is Patricia Vega. How are you and Arthur? He lived at home in Asuncion with us around 1973, I think. We always remember him and you. He loved my Mom so much and was a brother for all of us. We still keep a Christmas card with a picture of you, Art, and Hayden (1 or 2 years old).....I am lucky to find you here! We send a big hug from the Vega family from Paraguay.

The Vega's were Bolivians living in Asuncion who opened up their home to Art, when he first went to South America as a young, single teacher. He lived with them for two years while learning Spanish and was treated as a son. For years afterwards when we would talk of our early years in Paraguay Art would wistfully say "I wonder what ever happened to the Vega family?" In the past 24 hours we have had a complete update, photos, and emails from Patricia Vega, the youngest daughter and Teresa, the oldest. Wonderful, warm notes, lots of exclamation marks and the kindness and love just comes through as if we were still young and living in Asuncion. All because Patricia somehow found me on Facebook.

Today Art said wishfully "I wonder if I could find my Samoan family on Facebook". Maybe I will set him up with a Facebook page. Suddenly it seems that anything is possible. I can't wait to get my next unexpected message on Facebook.

Clearing out...

"It's time to do some clearing out," my mother says to me when I go and visit. She lives in a small, tidy assisted living apartment. I look around to find the clutter but I don't see it.

"What do you want to throw out?" I ask her, trying to be helpful and remembering that this is a ritual we go through every time I visit. She starts opening drawers and questioning "What am I hanging on to this for?" or "I don't need that anymore". Only very rarely will she say, "Perhaps I should keep that awhile longer."

When we open the closet in he bedroom she finds a half dozen things she has not worn in the past few years and asks me to get a bag for throwaway clothes. Later I find her going through a stack of catalogs under the coffee table and putting them in the trash knowing more will come within days...which they do. When we are finished she is pleased and I'm surprised that we have unearthed things to get rid of from her seemingly orderly surroundings. I notice that she feels infinitely better as if letting go of these things has given her a new outlook on life. She looks around her apartment with pleasure.

This makes me think of the Bessie K. Russell Branch Library in Huntsville, Alabama. Years ago, when I was Head of Extension Services for the Huntsville Madison County Public Library, I was responsible for the operation of the branch libraries. BKR, as we called it, was a thorn in my side. Mrs. Easley, a large black southern woman in her 60's with no library training had become head of the BKR branch before my time, and clung to her position with great authority. Then I came along, a white northern woman in my early 40's with an MLS degree and little administrative experience. I was her new boss from Headquarters.

BKR was not doing well because circulation figures were down. It only took a few visits to see that the collection had not been "weeded" in years. Instinct told me, I had to tread carefully knowing how insecure Mrs. Easely was when I made suggestions for any kind of changes. I began by looking for some positives I could praise Mrs. Easley for. I decided to work up to my goal to weed half the books on the overcrowded shelves. Once I had established the

groundwork, I spent an entire spring at BKR weeding the collection which was supposed to be part of Mrs. Easley's job description. A good administrator always delegates and yet I knew if I left it to her it would never happen.

One day, while I was midway through weeding the Fiction collection, I overheard a patron in the next aisle comment to another, " Look at all the new books in the library." The answer was, "Yeah, isn't it great?" Bingo! I knew we hadn't added any new books but taken out the old ones so that you could finally find to the newer ones. It was like the answer to "how to update your library collection without spending any money." It did not take long for circulation to start increasing. Mrs. Easley was thrilled and suddenly treated me with new respect despite my being young, white, and from the North. This became not only a personal victory for race relations, but my "cleaning out" story that I have told over and over again.

One of the liberating things about growing older is that I have lost my desire for acquiring things. I have little interest in shopping and there is nothing I need. I don't require things to remind me of experiences or trips because I keep the memories in my head and eliminate the clutter. I have always found it easy to part with things which is not surprising considering I was raised watching my mother easily acquire and get rid of things especially as we moved frequently.

I remember my Mother coming to my college graduation in Iowa from Bogota, Colombia where my parents were living. After the ceremony and celebrations, it was time to pack up and leave. I had an old trunk that I was fast filling to the top. When my mother saw what I was keeping she immediately started started finding things she thought I shouldn't keep. By the time she was finished with me I had a huge pile of giveaway stuff. Several of my friends in the dorm couldn't believe all that I was leaving behind and talked about it years later. They were secretly relieved their mothers were not doing the same. The truth was that I never missed a thing that I left behind once I went on with my life.

When I do buy something new I am compelled to throw out or give away something I no longer need. Clearing out closets and straightening up drawers, getting rid of things in the basement, and only keeping what I need around me makes me feel good. My priorities have changed and I have learned that one can live with less. Some of my friends of my age are doing the same. My college roommate who hung on to everything for years is spending her retirement having garage sales and selling on E-Bay. We have teased each other throughout our long friendship about my being the "thrower outer" and she the "keeper". She told me this week, " After spending the last few summers at the cabin (on a lake in Minnesota) I discovered how little I need to get along with."

Next time I visit Mother she will ask me again to help her clear out another closet, her bookcases, or her desk files. Being the expert "weeder" that I am, I will gladly oblige.