Memories, nostalgia, and self-absorption

This morning Facebook presented me with a memory from six years ago but didn’t show a picture and wouldn’t let me share it. It was a post about watching a chef roast a turkey and then, 24 hours before serving, put it in the fridge “to dry out.” What’s with that? I thought the whole point was to keep turkey meat moist. Apparently, refrigeration made the skin crisp and the meat even more moist. Could have fooled me. But the post went on to describe a successful book signing at Barnes & Noble and then dinner with Jacob. I’d fixed a version of the Scottish “bangers and mash,”—sausage and mashed potatoes—and he loved it, so I taught him to say bangers and mash. As he toddled off, close to bedtime, to watch just a few minutes of TV, he said, without my asking, “I love you, Juju.” He was five at the time.

The whole post made me think how many things have changed. The best I get from Jacob, now eleven, is a sort of mechanical, “Love you too,” when I hug him at night and tell him I love him. He sounds exactly like one of his uncles. And I no longer cook turkey, so I have no chance to try that turkey theory. My daughters do all the holiday cooking these days. Nor do I go trotting lightheartedly off to book signings, conferences and the like—missing the latter is a bitter blow, magnified by the surgeon’s suggestions I’ll never abandon the walker.

When I saw the surgeon Friday, he asked the usual questions: Was I getting out and about? Did I feel life was getting back to normal? At that point, my voice got a little shaky, I’m sure, as I told him life would never get back to what had been normal for me. These days my life is circumscribed—I’m in the cottage alone with Sophie I’d say 65% of the time; I get out some to lunch and dinner with friends, and I occasionally eat in the house with the family. I don’t have the drop-in visitors that I did when the cottage was new and a novelty, and I miss them.

I have so much to be thankful for, and so many people are in much worse straits than I am, but occasionally, I have a little pity party. And the flashback post this morning triggered one.

My pity party has disappeared quickly, not because I contemplated the people with disabling illnesses and chronic pain and financial straits, all those dire circumstances, but because I contemplated my own daughter. I had dinner in the house tonight. Christian fixed a dish that was sort of like a Mexican version of spaghetti mac—hamburger, pasta, corn, taco seasonings, and I don’t know what else, but it was so good. He put cheese on top and put it in the broiler—and left it too long. But the result was not what he feared—crisp and good, like the cheese that drips out of a grilled cheese sandwich and solidifies on the pan.

Jordan was cheerful and talkative, but clearly, she does not feel well. Her back is better, though there are still movement that hurt her. But she’s had a heavy cold now for a week, and she feels rotten, as we all do when we have a cold. I realized she has not been herself for two weeks—first the back and then the cold. And while she has not come out to chat and giggle, it’s because she feels lousy. So color me more tolerant and less self-absorbed.

This will be a good week. Let us all now give thanks for all our blessings.

Sorting through my life

Not my best photo, but this is how I spent much of the afternoon—sorting through boxes of clippings of book reviews and magazines articles I wrote in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Hungry to be a writer, I wrote about everything and anything. My bent for western history was evident in the book reviews, mostly for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram when Leonard “Sandy” Sanders was book editor—a glorious period of book reviews now long gone. My reviews are on crumbling yellow newsprint, but interestingly enough I attached my copy of the typewritten review to each—on a thin, onion-skin paper.

Then there were articles for a wide variety of publications—the Dallas Morning News had its own Sunday supplement called Scene, and I wrote often for them; many articles for the American Osteopathic Association magazines for lay readers called Health; a few for American Baby Magazine and some for a now defunct publication called Fort Worth Women. I was nothing if not eclectic.

These things will go to my archive at the Southwest Writers Collection, Texas State University-San Marcos. I wrote Steve Davis, curator, to say, “Are you sure you really want this stuff?” and he assured me they did. So when Jordan and I go to Austin in March, we’ll take them that far and arrange for pick-up. Maybe they’ll be an object lesson for some future writers. I am always surprise that the archive thinks I’m important enough to have my papers.

What surprises me about this collection is how wide-ranging my nonfiction was, how many publications I wrote for on what a variety of articles. It was my salad days and I guess I was anxious for any publication, but I think the training stood me in good stead and built the foundation for my later career.

I checked each magazine, discarding duplicates, being sure that I could find something I’d written. I gave Jordan one thick magazine and asked her to check for an article by me—she tired of it and went back to her phone. But she carried out the trash we discarded and loaded up two boxes for the archive. And she kept me company and served me wine. It was an eye-opening afternoon, revisiting things I’d almost forgotten.

And on a bright note, Jordan took this picture of my Valentine roses, which were delivered early for last night’s happy hour.