Family Peace Garden 2010

I'll miss the zinnias the most.

The zucchini not at all, especially not that last fourteen incher. The corn is long gone.
Tomatillos, strawberries, golden beans, onions way back when July meant sunflowers and flowering hops. First year peaches precious as baby smiles.
Stunted melons fed the birds, ditto plums.
Waiting yearning into August for tease-fruit tomatoes and then then then voluptuous volumes. I wept for wanting to keep up, called in my daughter-cooker canner, and still more more more daily every day until frost last night. Sudden, certain, gruesome finale but for the twenty-eight tease-fruit and a 10-incher on the kitchen counter.
 And, zinnias on the mantle.

Recurring Themes

Global issues are magnificently complex, I get that. But, when neither pundits nor professors are credible in their prognostications about topics that ping my life, I experience bewildered anxiety. The Tea Party and four-page, 5 point font pharmaceutical ads also throw me into bewildered anxiety.

So, grasping for something I can handle, today's focus: Crock pots. Crock pots are recurrent in my life. I received seven as wedding gifts, one of which I kept and have used sporadically for years. When my grandmother died, she had my name on her crock pot cookbook collection. My mother recently down-sized her kitchen and gave me three. Three?

What the crock pots teach:
1. Tenderness (Cosmic/Astrological lesson)
2. Work early, enjoy later (Puritan lesson)
3. Slow down (Psychiatric advice)
4. It's a crock (Cynical point of view)
5. With enough time, flavors blend (American melting pot myth)

I think there's a lesson about passing a smell-test, too. On that one, crock pot(s) might be more credible than pundits, professors, Tea Party and Big Pharma. But don't believe everything you smell. For instance, my garden tells me that Raw Is Better. And, I believe it.

We Know Things About Each Other - Reunion Final

Shared history connects us: we remember that a kindergarten classmate loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, that another had an emergency appendectomy in sixth grade, that a father disappeared.

We celebrate having been in the same place at the same time, years ago, and again for five hours, now. Classmates group up by junior high. Photos are taken. Arms around shoulders and waists, beer and wine glasses raised to the camera. Ridgeview rocks! Redwood rules! We know things about each other.

Long ago, we practiced awkward romance. Holding hands on Route 66, slow dancing in the gym while a cover band crooned Roy Orbison's "Only the Lonely." There must have been hundreds of first kisses among us. We learned together. A gang of girls who lunched together on the lawn told dirty jokes to each other. We gathered close and giggled. This is how I learned about erections. I don't know how much the others already knew.

First love, unrequited love, wrong person love, promiscuous love, sad-ending love and still-going love. We practiced love together all those years ago. We brought some of that with us last weekend. The reunion of decidedly grownup kids felt like love.

Grown Ups At A High School Reunion

What if you worked hard to finish a college degree or two. Found a good job that paid well. Married. Bought a house. Had a family.... And, all the while had a tiny sadness that maybe you had taken the easy, level, paved path all along? What if you'd always yearned to sing or invent or swim naked in July but hadn't?

At the reunion, stories of success, transformation, loss and redemption, were often followed by the yearnings. Some of us yearn loudly, others with deep sighs. (Sure, some are probably completely satisfied. Are these the lucky ones or the risk takers?) I think the yearnings are indication of what lies ahead for us.

Meet me at the South Yuba River next July.

Haunted by Certain Classmates

Five hours wasn't enough time. About an hour into the reunion, I realized that I wanted to hear a story from every person there, to lose myself in characters that shared a history. To validate (or not) my thin slice of memory and imagination about who we were/are. I am haunted by that boy who was a perennial candidate in class elections. How is it that he rode his bike over 150 miles to attend the reunion and didn't have a place to stay when he got there? Why didn't I talk to him?

Like the Prom In Some Ways

As it turns out, California Casual is a pretty wide-open fashion category as evidenced by an animated classmates' forum on the reunion website. The group determined that the only rule about California Casual is: no nudity. I think this might be too strict. I can name at least five destinations within an hour's drive of my very conservative (yep, in California) community where clothing-wearers are apt to be ridiculed. As for me, on the night before the event the poison oak on my legs came into full bubbly bloom - as if to staunch any fantasies of glamor. (Flashback to prom morning: younger brother points out mountainous eruption on side of nose.)

All I had in my closet was what I always have in my closet - an array of solid color business clothes and the pile of folded Levi's in various stages of fade. The obvious choice: mid-fade classic 501 button-fly Levi's, dressed up with open-toed heels - which turned out to be cruel shoes and were shed before sundown. Levi's = still a perfect choice for any activity.

Scanning for a sense of others' dress code interpretations, I spotted lots of shorts and Hawaiian shirts, natural fabrics, khakis and polos, summery dresses, some fancy, some ultra stylish. Everyone dressed perfectly for a late summer evening in California.

Therefore, I hereby declare that in Napa, California on September 11, 2010, a big group of aging California kids came together wearing whatever they damned-well pleased and that is what is called California Casual.

(Nobody showed up nude; probably had something to do with gravity.)

Dreaming of Foam

I experience persistent left armpit deodorant failure, so approached the high school reunion with trepidation.

It's not just the left armpit problem. Social events exhaust my inner hermit. The drive to the venue was long enough to explore a variety of excuses. Up to the moment I arrived and exited the car, there was still a chance I'd bail. Most people scoff when I say this because my past and current activities/job suggest that I am a well-adjusted extrovert. It's a ruse. I feel deeply awkward and uncomfortable in large milling groups.

Here's a short list of excuses overcome:
1. I have a lot to do at home
2. I have changed (aged/gained weight) since I was in high school
3. I have a sore throat coming on (my husband, a teacher, actually has had a sore throat for a couple of weeks)
4. It's hot out and the garden needs my attention
5. It's been years (decades) since I saw the people in my high school class, why reconnect now?
6. It's a gorgeous fall weekend and I could go hiking instead
7. I'm tired
8. I forgot my toothbrush
9. I don't know what "California Casual" (the dress code for the event) means
10. I didn't get around to washing the car
11. I should wash the windows at the house
12. Work might need me

But, I love hearing peoples' stories and that's why I didn't turn around.